


pushing daisies

by space (sunblue)



Category: GOT7
Genre: Angst, College AU, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Florist AU, Flowers, Fluff, M/M, Unreliable Narrator, despite the title no one dies its ok, not rlly but yes rlly, slowish burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-05-20 03:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 68,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5990224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunblue/pseuds/space
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which jaebum insists he's never seen jinyoung before, and jinyoung insists he doesn't care, and the beginning of spring is late, but there are flowers everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

 

 

_fool me once, shame on you_

_fool me twice, shame on me_

 

 

 


	2. the one where jaebum is late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd

During the first encounter, on a quiet spring day, Jaebum was late and there were magnolias blooming under the sky. They were a soft beacon of sorts, with its shivering in the wind and the drifting scatter of its petals and Jaebum stares at it perplexed from across the green, people streaming around him like a river. It wasn't a much of an anomaly, it was just a tree, but somehow he swears it was his first time seeing it.

The tree isn't hard to miss. The trunk was twisted like a rope, its branches arching skywards and decorated with clustered flowers reaching towards the sun. It was a blossoming cloud, delicately held aloft and breezy in white like satin. It stood shrewdly, insisting it had always been there.

Jaebum knew he had pretty shit eyesight and that he depended on his contacts like a lifeline if he wanted to be able to read anything further than personal space, but unless plants could now suddenly sprout and bloom overnight, he had walked pass this poor excuse for a park for years and had never once seen magnolias in this city.

Perhaps it's a mental blank, he thinks, some temporary amnesia, but either way the existence of some squat tree wasn't going to make him any less late for his date. He still had to find a florist. His mother had been insistent on this girl, or more so than usual, and had demanded in a syrupy tone to dish out more of his money for nicer flowers this time. No more of that cheap tulip or flimsy daisies crap or whatever.

In his opinion, flowers on a date were so outdated like a tacky kiss on the hand, one of those lame courtship rituals no one took seriously these days, and if his mother didn't badger all his dates afterwords for details, he would've dropped the idea a long, long time ago.

The March air feels like frostbite in his lungs and he breathes it in, feeling his throat crystalise. He turns away from the patch, the small block of grass and trees nestled in the city, out of place amongst the grey, and continues his way down the street.

The only real reasons why he was behind time for this blind date was because he'd spent a bit too long discussing his tactiful retreat with Jackson in case his _hot date_ , as his friend had put, turned out to be to be 'more than he could handle'. It would be fucking hilarious, Jackson had said, if she was a bible girl or, even better, some shit hipster chick to match his damp personality. He had then proceeded to keel over with his hands clutching his sides as he recounted for the _n_ th time his train wreck of a date with a girl who was devotely dedicated to her dogs and had snuck her poodles into the restaurant, only to have them escape, trash the place, ruin the carpet and rip one star off the hotel's perfect five. He had to personally pay for damage and emotional compensation. Jaebum really wondered where his mother found these women.

It was now protocol to always have some sort of back up plan, a fallback, a safety net to catch him if he ever ended up being paired with a serial killer. But as dictated all he really had was Jackson, and he was still a safety net, but one that had holes and was made of party streamers. He had told his friend very firmly that he was to only bail him out with an emergency phone call about something like his cat or a running tap, and _only_ that. He could live without another Circus Fiasco.

The second reason that he had ten minutes tops and was power walking through a stubborn crowd, was that the usual florist he frequented to was on a temporary hiatus. Or really, its owner had forgotten to close the doors and their entire stock of flowers died overnight. And lo behold, here Jaebum was, scouring the city for another.

For a city of this size, there was an incredible shortage of flower shops and with all the navigating and panic-induced pacing, Jaebum could feel the slow burn of dread settle in his stomach. He should've just ordered dumb daffodils off some crap website instead of his customary shrug and I'll-do-it-tomorrow, should've not forgotten his phone at home, should've not agreed to his mother's delusions having a spinster son.

Weaving through the mass, he feels seamlessly lost in the canter of footsteps and flashing advertisments, the heavy chilled air and acridic smell of engine exhaust fogging at his lungs. He could feel a slow headache eroding a hole in his head like someone was digging a cigarette butt to his temple. He turns a corner with fingers pressing into his forehead, trying to ease it away, and, upon looking up, he feels sweet relief at the sight of a store across the road.

It's no doubt a florist, with that terribly overused Parisian terrace and striped awnings, probably in some shade named champagne or cornsilk or other words that his mother liked. A display of blossoms were bunched in silver tins on the concrete and window sills, blooming like fireworks, and the painted brick was laced with creeping tendrils of hanging plants and pleated ivy.

Finally. Jaebum breathes out.

In quick strides, he crosses the road and enters the charming tinkle of a brass bell sings in his ear, and he is instantly hit with a woozy fragrance of tossed earth and sugary perfume.

The first thing he notices is that the place was a lot larger than it looked from the outside. The second is that the inside was a goddamn labyrinth, a twisted cavern of overgrowth and undergrowth and the faint rivets of woodwork and tin tracing parallels. The third is that there was another man inside. Carefully combing though a thick bushel of peonies the colour of rain was a handsome faced stranger standing like a storm cloud in grey clothes and ratty sneakers, supposedly lost in thought.

"Uhm, excuse me?" he clears his throat.

Said stranger looks up, surprised for a moment at his presence before studying him with calculated, crescent-shaped eyes. It reminds Jaebum of a cat, narrowed and sharp with a sensitive sixth sense whispering deductions in his ear. The back of Jaebum's neck prickles with silver needles and it's not pleasant, but it's not uncomfortable either. Foreboding, familiar.

"I don't work here." the stranger finally says. Its an answer Jaebum wasn't expecting.

Before he could assume that he was a loiterer or worse, a thief, the man then ducks behind the counter and disappears behind a door clearly labelled _employees only_. Jaebum raises an eyebrow but waits anyway, foot tapping, and he glances at his watch, feeling the seconds ticking into his wrist and skin.

The not-an-employee reappears a second later with a second stranger in tow. A shorter man with a striking face and a dirt stained, green working apron.

"Hi, sorry, we had an accident in the cool room. I'm Mark by the way." He puts his hand out for a shake but, then realising that it was dirty, pulls it back and awkwardly wipes it on his apron.

"Yeah, I'm in a rush. Can I just grab something and go?"

The stranger looks at him with a snarky brow raised, "That depends, are you going to pay?" It's a little uncalled for, Jaebum thinks, considering they didn't know each other.

Honing in all the manners that had been drilled into him, Jaebum smiles at him with as much simper and sourness as he could, "I thought you didn't work here."

The look he gets is purely scathing and more of a lashback than what he thinks is necessary, but before he could open his mouth, Mark steps in, flustered, with his hands raised.

"Jinyoung," he shoots a pleading look at his friend, and this Jinyoung gets the message and disappears once more behind the counter, but not before rolling his eyes dramatically. The door closes quietly with an infuriating click.

"Sorry about that. He's a nice person, really."

Jaebum finds that hard to believe, but he presents an unoffended and polite grin that can't reach his eyes. Regarding first impressions, this one really took the cake and it wasn't even his fault this time.

Remembering that he was actually really pressed for time, he snaps back to his more urgent matter and randomly points to a display of flowers with a whim decision.

"I'll take those," he says and slaps some fat bills in Mark's hand, "Keep the change."

It's comical the way Mark's eyes look down, bulge, and then look straight back up at him just to make sure.

Jaebum leaves the store, feeling a little stupid and a little ironic with peonies the colour of rain in his hands and the trill of a brass bell ringing in his ears.

 

  
The hand-picked girl that he meets at the hand-picked restaurant is charming. She has sparkling white teeth and sparkling white stones on her long fingers, which reflect and dazzle when she idly moves her hand to hold his. She's ideally witty and humorous, and the dress she wears flows like the sea and reflects like the moon whenever she moves with her practiced steps.

Maybe Jaebum would have enjoyed their time together more if he hadn't felt so unsettled, so irritated, with his thoughts curiously trailing back to the ivy crawled store. There didn't seem to be anything significant about it, yet it kept replaying in his head like a broken record, a strange absence sitting in his chest.

 

  
It's still frightfully cold at the time of the year so when Jaebum catches sight of a neglected, yet blooming patch of chrysanthemum's behind his university's humanities building, he stops. It was early spring, way before these types of flowers were even meant to open up, but there they were, sheltered between patches of weeds and gnarled shrubbery like the last patches of winter's snow. Morning frost clings to the velvet petals, catching the sunlight. Jaebum stares at them and feels like he's in a dream, and that if he were to reach out for them they would disappear at the touch of his finger tips.

A hazy sigh began to grow in his chest.

He jumps when he hears the sound of rustling leaves. He turns and starts when he sees a strikingly familiar face, with the same crescent eyes, same surprise and same scowl, standing in front of him in a charcoal jacket that swallows his frame.

"What the hell are you doing here?" it slips out nastier than he had intended and Jinyoung looks at him like he had just kicked his grandmother.

"Taking a shortcut," he scowls, "what's it to you?"

"No, I meant what are you doing here?" he waves his hand around, indicating the school.

"I go here," his voice, though soft spoken, was spoilt with derision, "I've been here for the same time as you?" Jaebum's eyes open wide.

The sunlight is a cool grey and it shifts palpably between the foliage overhead, painting hues of green onto their skin. Jaebum wracks his brain, tries to draw a memory, but all he could retrieve was a fog of nothing. "Huh, I've never noticed." he shrugs.

"We share a class, we've met." Jinyoung shifts his weight, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh."

"It's just typical, isn't it?" His voice is heavy with something Jaebum feels like he should know, and Jinyoung smiles at him with an unshared secret.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he mimics his pose. He hadn't been a physical fight since he was some punk brat teenager looking for cheap thrills, but against Jinyoung the confrontation seemed more wily than violent, and his thoughts grew wary at the alien situation.

"It's just like you to be like this. You and all your pampered bullshit, thinking you can act like a prick just cause you think you're better than me with your money and your family name."

And just like that, the engima seemed to snap. It was disappointingly unsurprising, and Jaebum could feel his confusion harden into a crystal understanding, that this Jinyoung was like every other person that resented him for no personal reasons other than the characters attached to his name.

"You're being delusional, I barely even know you, and I doubt you do about me."

Jinyoung clicks his tongue and turns his head to glare at the brick wall, closing his eyes, exasperated and seemingly brooding his temper away. Despite himself, Jaebum briefly traces his profile, and was furthermore even more certain that surely they had never met. At the corner of his eyes, the chrysanthemums tremble in the wind and it suddenly got harder to think.

When Jinyoung looks him back in the eyes, Jaebum feels a thrill down his spine.

"You can try and be all that fake chivalry or whatever, but I know what you're like. You're no better than all the other pretentious brats in this place. Flaunting around your name in a school your parents paid to get you into, while some of us have to actually work to get somewhere."

Jaebum exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. He really couldn't believe this. The clouds above move and the shadows shift their silhouettes, printing dapples onto Jinyoung's irritated face. So the whole attitude was about his money? Jaebum really couldn't be bothered to deal with something petty like this, he knew it was a lost cause to put any effort into someone as stubborn as this. He would know.

The silence they share is simmering and Jinyoung is the first to walk away, knocking his shoulder aside. The bruise that begins to settle felt like fire set alight and it burned numbingly into his skin like ice. Jaebum walks away then, scuffing his shoes against the pavement and he watches the flower petals lilt and bow in the calm breeze.

 

  
The apparent possibility that Jaebum had already met Jinyoung bit naggingly at his thoughts, so when he and Jackson were once more stuck waiting in line at some cookie cutter, edgy, lowkey hipster cafe, he guesses it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey, do you know a Jinyoung from our school?" he asks as casually as he can, focusing on staring at the deerhead centerpiece hung on the wall in front of them.

Jackson fidgets next to him. "Old man Jinyoung or the other Jinyoung?"

"Other, I guess."

"What about him?"

"Do I know him?"

Jackson snorts, "What kind of question is that? You should ask yourself."

Jaebum shrugs, "Well, should I know him?"

"Most people do cause he's the scholarship student. Getting a free ride and all, well as long as he keeps his GPA crazy high. Also cause he has a nice ass."

Jaebum barks a laugh and involuntarily decides to check next time, just to confirm. Now that he knew that yes, he'd never met this Jinyoung before and that clearly he was the innocent party and the guy just had a lot of pent up beef or something, he felt an airy relief and somewhat smug, the tension in him melting like the coldsnap of a freeze in sunlight.

"Does he hate me or something? Cause he's kind of an asshole." He looks at Jackson, who's looking at his phone.

The barista calls out an excessively long name of an obscure coffee order and a fake name to follow, there's the distinct plume and hiss of steam curling around the counter, and, Jaebum was surprised he didn't notice before, cloud white chrysanthemums were intricately woven around the faux antlers of the deer like branches in the snow.

Jackson finally answers, "I have no idea. Guy keeps to himself, kind of moody. How did your date go, by the way?"

Jaebum purses his lips, finding the sudden subject change odd, "It was good." he says.

"Good as in your mother will betroth you next week or good as in you forgot her name?"

Jaebum gives him a look, "Good as in she was nice."

"Ah, yes, the amazing and wonderful nice. I'll expect your nuptials are soon, promise to make me the best man?"

Grinning, Jaebum pulls Jackson's stupid hat down over his face and catches his friend between a squawk and a squeal, dropping his phone. A few people stare but Jackson remains unperturbed as he reaches up to fix his bleached hair.

"I don't see why my mother wants me to settle down already. I've got plenty of time, the last thing I need right now is a marriage certificate."

"You could always just find someone yourself instead of your fortnightly dates or whatever. Go speed dating, try a couple of websites, hang around at seedy bars."

"I'm only in my second year of uni, I don't think there's a single sane person who's worrying more about a wedding ring than finals."

"It's because your mom's worried about you. Your family will need some heir after you ascend to the throne." Jackson gives him lame jazz hands and Jaebum's eyes can't roll any further back.

"Please don't make this sound like a historical melodrama."

"Then stop being such a hollywood romcom cliché. This isn't Pretty Women or the Nanny Diaries." he huffs the last part in english.

Disregarding that he had no idea what the hell a Pretty Women or a Nanny Diaries was, and he thinks it's better if he doesn't ask because if he was a hollywood chick flick then he wouldn't have been standing in the queue for what seemed like a lifetime discussing his prenuptials, Jaebum felt discontent. He didn't feel a need to have a girlfriend at all, much less a wife at the moment and he really didn't need his parents breathing down his neck about it.

Someone drops their spoon on the wooden floor and the crash of silver snaps his thoughts apart. Jackson's peering at him a little concerned, of what he's not sure, and it seems to bore right into, unjudgementally yet unnervingly familiar like he knows something Jaebum doesn't.

"Why are you staring, am I that handsome?" he attempts to joke.

Jackson, the biggest surprise of all, doesn't laugh, not really. There's still a trace of disquiet on the frowns of his face like the microscopic cracks in glass.

"You really are a spinster." Jackson says, and then he turns to face the counter and orders.

 

 

The sonorous lilt of the professor's sentence falls halfway off when Jaebum walks in to the lecture hall, face tinged pink with exertion and his collar ruffled. The rooms stares at him and he bows stiffly to the professor in apology, firmly avoiding their discreet glare and the firm line of their lips, and climbs the stairs, stumbling into wayward bags as he scans for a vacant seat.

But the only ones left are way up the back beneath the shadows and Jaebum curses because shit, he had left his glasses at home and the most he could make from the shitty comic sans-esque powerpoint at that distance were faint, blurry blobs that looked like hairy caterpillars. And, with how his luck loved to progress downhill, the only vacant seat close enough to the front was the one beside the one and only person, that he knew of, that hated his guts. He bites back his sigh like he would a bullet and slides into the seat. Jinyoung gives him his best apathetic-yet-passively-irritated glance, just bordering on meeting him in the eye, before returning his focus to the front with his chin resting on his hand, scratching in lazy notes in his book like he already knew the material.

The professor mumbles something in his sleepy voice about a video and then, with the sharp click of a switch, the room snaps into a swift darkness. The light of the projector swathes their silhouettes in lines of bright blue and its striking, Jaebum notices, the sharp lines and hazy neons that play on Jinyoung's face, like a city awake at night, its lights left flickering on.

The video plays and the sound system is crap and everything is muffled like its behind a thick pane of glass. Red and green, the glimpses of yellow, flicker and move across the planes of his body like a kaleidoscope.

There's an unnaturally shy fondness emerging in the twist of Jaebum's stomach, and it sits uninvited but equally welcome, like an old stranger visiting. It makes him nauseous.

A curious tug pulls at him, an intuition of a presence, and he looks downwards to where Jinyoung's left his bag slouched against his desk's legs. It's unzipped and gaping open and inside Jaebum can see what he faintly recognises as Queen Anne's Lace, a cluster of white pinpricks of flowers, delicate as their name suggests.

"What are you staring at?"

Jaebum starts, and glances to see Jinyoung looking at him with a quizzical arch to his brow, and he notices the mellow red on his cheek, the subdued pink dying the fabric of his windbreaker. It's embarrassing, noticing all this.

"Uh," He feels stupid with his mouth open but he doesn't know what to say.

"Did you forget how to speak?"Jinyoung snorts.

The jest jumpstarts his mind and Jaebum closes his mouth, swallowing his tongue, "No, no. Just, uh, nice flowers." He cringes, feels his soul crumpling like a newspaper as soon as he registers how dumb that had sounded.

"Uhm, okay?" If he overthinks enough, Jaebum is sure there's some ill-intended sympathy in Jinyoung's tone.

The other man starts to snicker, which grows into a laugh that he tries to cover under his hand, and for the second time in a row, Jaebum feels a light suckerpunch to his chest and something tells him to smile back, even if the laugh was a little derisive. He doesn't though, but he admits to himself that Jinyoung had a nice smile, even if it was at his expense.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hopefully this will update fortnightly. ive had this idea nagging me and i have the whole thing planned. dw i havent forgotten the med au haha.
> 
> if jinyoung seems real salty, dw it'll all make sense later ;^)
> 
> tumblr: 7cm  
> 


	3. the one where jinyoung calls jaebum an ass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slowly, slowly, like green in the snow, the first signs of spring begin to show.

"-- and please," Jaebum's mother's voice crackles on the other side of the conversation, "at least _consider_ considering this girl. I had to pull a lot of strings for this, you know? You're not building our family's reputation by going through one-time dates like your father goes through coffee cups. At this rate we'll never have grandchildren." 

Jaebum hums idly, listening more to the background crackle of what seems to be his mother's blender and juicer going off at the same time. The city swarms around him in thin trickles, the Sunday morning blues linger like a sparse fog and the sky is still tinted with residues of dawn. A cool lilac burnt eastward into a cream, soon followed by blurry layers of rose and vermilion and grey painted clouds. Early risers walk briskly by, weaving through last night's drinkers whom nurse hangovers with purple bags and bloodshot eyes. The scent of tobacco and fumes permeates. 

As his schedule dictates, it was one week later from his last date thus meaning he was now being roped into another. A real shy girl, his mother had told him, her assistant handing over a prim manila folder thick with records and photographs and Jaebum had fought back a joke about whether this was a case file and he was meant to arrest her. His mother wouldn't have laughed. Instead, he'd been more concerned if this amount of snooping was even legal and proceeded to leave the files gathering dust in the trunk of his car, reminding himself to burn it later, just in case. 

Apparently she had to beg a few vixen eyed socialites, friends she insisted, to get the girl's father to consider, which constituted of providing every report card he had since middle school and an embarrassing list of every achievement since being born, including evidence. That included a mortifying video of him as a tween singing in a shitty school talent show. He threatened to gouge his eyes out, a warning which went ignored.

He crosses the road, shuffling through the packed roadways and inbetween car bumpers and smoking cab drivers, gas exhaust rising in plumes off the sidewalk like ghosts. His footsteps are dull against the gritty concrete.  

"Honey, are you listening? Give her a chance, okay?" Jaebum bites the inside of cheek. He had already firmly decided that he wouldn't.

"Yes, I know," he replies, "Don't blow her off, consider considering, and--"

"And buy nice flowers! Peonies are fine, but why don't you try something more exotic? I heard spider lilies are--"

"Oh no, I have to go. Sorry mom, left the stove on and all."

"But honey, I can hear that you're outside."

"Bye, mom." He hangs up and slips his phone into his coat pocket, feeling the device vibrate not a moment later with an angry text. 

Make a good impression and they could have more than a daughter-in-law, his parents had reminded. It all felt very corporate, as if he was signing on a dotted line for subsidiaries and stock market claims and not an investment for his personal happiness. He guesses it's merely compensation, a reimbursement for the life he was born into. It feels selfish to neglect their wishes, he knows that if Jackson was ever in his shoes he would gladly make the best of it. Fortunately for his friend, he had something more forefront on his family's mind than living in wedlock. _Married to my sabre_ , his friend had joked.

The wind picks up. He pulls his muffler to mouth and braces against it, sharp gusts like steel. He passes the small park where the magnolia tree stands, now an acquainted sight, and turns a corner and crosses the road. The wind whistles past his ears and he stands in front of the same flower shop as last week's. 

Unlike the first time Jaebum could now take a longer look at the place, and despite the morbidness of it, he smiles when he reads _Pushing Daisies_ written in a curling bronze scripture above the awnings. Not much had changed as he had expected, except now the flowers on display outside were ruffled like feathers and their petals were scattered across the street like a veil, lifted by the breeze and crushed under cars, carried away on the underside of shoes.

When he opens the door, wood painted in white with cracks like snapped ice, he hears the brass bell greet him and is instantly submerged with its fragrance of soil and sugar. It's warmer inside, like summer had been trapped inside, and Jaebum unwinds his scarf, enjoying the warm flush thawing his fingers and nose.

It's not disappointment he feels when he sees only Mark, alone at the counter in his green apron, twirling the stem of a flower in his hands. The man looks up at him when he enters and softly smiles in recognition.

"Oh, hey. You're back again," he says, then adding, "Jinyoungie's in the back."

Jaebum resists asking why he would need to know that, and instead smiles back, for real this time. "Yeah, I'm--"

"Im Jaebum, I know. We've met before."

"Yeah, sorry about last time, I was in a rush."

Mark scrunches his eyebrows a little but it disappears quickly enough that Jaebum almost dismisses it. "So, what can I do for you?" he sets the flower down onto the counter and looks at him almost startingly in the eyes as if through a pane of glass.

"Just some flowers, as usual."

Mark raises his eyebrows, "Girlfriend?"

Jaebum chuckles at the prospect. He wanders over to an arrangement of marigolds by the wall and thumbs over the velveteen petals, feeling the smooth gloss beneath his fingertips. "Nah, just a blind date thing. My mother just can't wait for me to settle down apparently." The flowers are a burning yellow and tangerine. He almost expects it to bleed into his skin. 

"Is it a rich people thing to settle down at the ripe old age of college student, or did you miss out on a childhood fiancée?" Mark asks casually.

Jaebum glances down at his clothes, and he guesses his money is easier to notice in his nicer clothes. A simple suit of lavish silk, enough to impress but not to deter first impressions, and the giveaway that was his polished watch, partially uncovered and gleaming platinums in the lowlight sun. Far from his usual casual wear, he began to feel rigid and stiff in his cuffs and collar.

He shrugs, "Never did get that childhood sweetheart," he laughs, "Either way, it won't make your friend's opinion of me improve."

Sunbeams slowly begin to filter in through the windows, the rain clouds an ocean rolling away, painting the plants golden and the wooden shelves honey ochre. Reflected colours fringe his vision. Mark props an elbow on the counter, gazing out the window and into the water streaked streets. If it weren't for the pooling clarity in his eyes, Jaebum would've think he was beginning to doze.

"Jinyoung can be swayed. Eventually."

Jaebum walks over to the roses which are garnered in generous bushels of lush scarlets and synthesised blues, clouds of creamy whites and pinks, tied in neat silky ribbons and wrapped in crisp brown paper. He senses Mark watching him out the corner of his eye.

"It's not like I've really done anything to tick him off in the first place, right?" He turns to face the man.

Mark looks at him for about a heartbeat before he scrunches his face and laughs as if Jaebum was some metaphorical butt of a fantastic joke. Jaebum stares, bewildered, until the other man realises that yes, as a matter of fact he was completely serious, and he calms down, clearing his throat distractedly. He looks pointedly down at the wood grain of the counter, tracing the spirals with his eyes.

"Okay, alright, whatever the case is, it's also Jinyoungie's fault too and you two are both guilty," he speaks placatingly as if they were children squabbling incessantly, "Jinyoung's stubborn but he's not stupid, and," he adds with a comforting yet knowing smirk, "he hasn't called you ugly yet."

"Wow, I feel so blessed-"

The whine of an opening door startles him. There's the scuff of sneakers against hardwood and the rustle of something being lifted, and Jinyoung walks in, balancing a tray of potted anemones weeping in colours of indigo and periwinkle in his arms. His shirt is dusty with clay, his sleeves bunched at his elbows and his fringe peaks out from underneath a bright red cap, a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead. Thin scrapes run down his knuckles likes scratches of chalk.

"Hyung, who are you talking about me with -- Oh," his playful tone drops short and his eyes widen, brown briefly catching gold in the stray sunlight, before narrowing like a cat's, "it's  _you_."

Jaebum rolls his eyes, "Yeah, it's me." It's stupid, but he feels like smiling. 

"What are you doing here?" Jinyoung sets the plants down on the counter and discreetly, to Jaebum's amusement, tries to dust away the grime on his palms, before crossing his arms over his chest. 

"I'm a customer" he says simply, slipping his hands into his pockets, "I think that gives me a good reason to be here."

"Then hurry up and buy something." 

Jaebum is vaguely aware of Mark watching them withhis chin resting on his palm and his gaze leisurely darting back and forth between them as if this were some B-rated drama and they were both quarreling arch enemies or whatever other cheesy character archetypes they could mould into. The store lapses into an unnatural silence and the tension is purely palpable, Jaebum feels like he could drown in it. He doesn't know what to say. He knows however that whatever murky and debatable assumptions Jinyoung had drawn from out of the woodwork about him, he was willing to overlook. In truth, he really didn't have the effort to hate him over a misunderstanding he didn't even understand.

The marigolds in the corner closely curl unto themselves, curves of auburn fading to yellow like the setting sun. The dahlias beside them burst like the sky in hints of creams and yellows and trickles of plum, and the lilies, standing proudly upright, spread open like palms in cool, spring water. 

He rubs the nape of his neck, the unusual feeling of bashfulness dawning on him like a rosy blush. It makes his skin prickle. 

 

 

When he returns his gaze, Jinyoung's glare falters and slips. 

He sighs, "Look, I'm sorry." Jaebum never found it easy to apologise, much less express any heartfelt emotion, but it was excruciating to apologise for something he'd hadn't even done. Behind them, Mark pretends he isn't eavesdropping and shuffles over to a window, opening it and letting the breeze crawl in, airing out the mugginess with its cool caress and along with it the thick steel weld in his throat dissipates. Jinyoung's face falls slack in surprise, the look in his eyes now expectant. There's a little thrill in chest, an enclosed butterfly fluttering, knowing he was holding his attention.

He tries not to trip over his own tongue, "I just feel like we should bury the hatchet, for whatever I, or we, did."

A snarky word sits on the tip of Jinyoung's tongue, but Mark cuts in, "I think so too. Jaebum's right." he says, and Jinyoung stops and gawps like a goldfish, uncharacteristically lost for words. 

Awkwardness creeps at Jaebum's neck, "Let's not start off on the wrong foot, you know?" 

Jinyoung's eyes bulge open as if he had just been socked in the stomach. His fingers suddenly tighten around his arm, blunt fingernails biting into his skin and he seems to writhe with indignation and Jaebum just knows that he's stood on another trivial landmine. Jinyoung glares at Mark almost pleadingly, who smiles partly with sympathy but mostly not at all. He looks back at Jaebum, straight in the eyes, "I cannot believe you just said that," he spits, half-flustered, a hand waving around in disbelief, "And for a moment I actually thought-"

"You should do it, Jinyoung." Mark cuts in. There's something sadistic about him, the playful lilt in his accented tone like the happy musings of playground bully, seemingly innocent in parents' eyes. 

"What?"

Mark leans against the window sill, wind tickling his hair as he grins. "Just go on the man date. Get it over with."

"Man date--"

"Man date?" Jaebum falters, "No, no, I just meant like, get to know each other."

"Exactly." Mark nods. He picks up a violet between his fingers and twirls it absent-mindedly. 

"Hyung, please." Jinyoung sighs.

"Don't you think we're moving a bit too fast?" Jaebum laughs airily, trying to keep lighthearted. He isn't sure if Mark is serious. He didn't seem like the kind of guy to joke a lot with strangers, but he couldn't judge books by their covers or birds by their wings. 

Jinyoung shoots him a look, "Don't joke about this, you ass."

"Ass?"

"You heard me," he regards him from head to toe, "You're just really something, you know."

Mark smiled, somewhat fondly as if their animosity was just trivial. "You two really need to work your problems out. Jinyoung, I want to use my trump card."

 

 

Jinyoung whips his head around so fast that Jaebum thinks his neck should've snapped, "Hyung, no, please."

"Just one outing, go out on one man date, that's all I'm asking."

"You wouldn't, right? No one's possibly that cruel."  
   
Mark looks down with pursed lips and shrugs ominously. Jinyoung wilts and presses his hands to his face, groaning through clenched teeth. When he removes his hands, Jaebum can see a faint pink tinting his cheeks, heightening his curiosity ten fold. He knows it's not his place to ask, especially with the horribly, mean-spirited and absolutely mature pouting that Jinyoung was doing, trying to simultaneously burn holes through the floor and ignore his entire existence. 

He clears his throat, "Um, I still need flowers. For my woman date." 

The glower he receives from Jinyoung leaves corroding pinpricks in his skin, but he tries not to smile at sheer disbelief still evident on his face when he shoves a bouquet of periwinkle blue anemones into his face and tries to kick him out, not even asking for payment. 

"Get lost," he mutters, his face is still pink.

He opens the door and a gust of wind knocks his breath back and some of the petals flicker away behind him. He spares a last glance over his shoulder and he sees the two men standing by the counter, Mark still twirling the violet in his pale figures as he attempts to ask for forgiveness by gently shaking his friend's shoulder, and Jinyoung, in his red cap and black shirt with his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest, still pouts, remaining adamant on ignoring. Despite himself Jaebum laughs, endeared, and he leaves, almost missing the lovely bewilderment on Jinyoung's face. 

 

 

 

According to his mother, the restaurant Jaebum was meant to meet his date at was on one of the top floors of some hotel by the city's central park. When Jaebum steps into the building's roomy elevator, he's instantly met with the temptation to laugh at the interior. It's ridiculously avant garde with every surface a polished mirror except the glass floor and he wonders what kind of designer genuinely thought that people would enjoy seeing themselves stretch into infinity at every angle. 

The flowers in his hands are slightly battered and the paper is crumpled from mishandling, a handful of petals are bent or torn and some are even torn. They stretch to the horizon in their reflections, blooms of blue scattered against black, and Jaebum, now a one-man crowd, thought himself floating in space. 

He spends quiet two minutes in the universe until the elevator stops and the doors slide open. 

With the skyline of the city stretching as far he could see behind the wall length windows, the generous amount of mirror installations and the reflective ceiling, he realises that the whole building was aggressively attempting to look larger on the inside than out. The city central park sits in transit between winter and spring with its canopy partially bare and partially decorated in lush greens and pockets of flowering pinks. The loose litters of early plum and apple blossoms spiral to the lawn below like flurries of snow. 

The park stretches from east to west as a barrier between landscapes, with one being the urban slick of star-tiered hotels, french-kissed restaurants and tinted glass skyscrapers, and the other side, to the north, was just everything else.

At the table he's reserved, or his mother reserved actually, his apparent date sits there. She's young with silky hair cut short and nervous, watery eyes. She gnaws on her bottom lip, unsure of where to look. When he hands her the flowers she smiles gleefully, not seeming to mind the shaken, bruised state of them. She traces the petal lips with a finger, studying the spider line veins on its leaves and the silk of its colours fading from one to another. Jaebum is briefly reminded of the brief warmth of Jinyoung's hand on his, a fleeting touch.

They talk cordially with polite exchanges and comments and it's nice. Just nice.

"Seems like the leaves are starting to grow back, huh?" The restaurant is pouring with light, airy and spacious and seemingly vacant. The tree tops rustle like ocean waves in a storm. His date looks at him curiously, but she glances down upon meeting his eye, intent on re-reading the menu. His throat grows sore. 

 

 

  
The next day Jaebum wakes up to a text from his mother, hinting at second dates and long-term relationships, which he ignores in favour of pulpy orange juice and eating his sleep-deprivation away in a bowl of porridge. He stares blankly out of the window of his high-rise apartment, a graduation gift courtesy of his father, and down into the already riveting streets of salary men in starched collars and hipsters in red flannel. The size of ants from his perch, they looked like the swarming mass of a colony, weaving through their morning commute like the synchronised march of insects. Consistent in rain, shine and sleet. He watches them until his food grows cold.

He takes the subway to campus, a fifteen minute kill-joy ride packed between strangers that smell of stale cigarette smoke and  _parfum: pour homme_. The carriage jostles to and fro and he sways to its rhythm, between the beat of metal and tunnel winds, watching the darkness stream pass the windows and the repeating reflections imprinted on glass, stretching into the black. 

By the time he has his first lecture, his mouth tastes like honey and orange and his coat lingers with the odd mix of cheap cologne and homeless people. It's familiar, it's comfortable. When he walks into the hall he zeroes in on Jinyoung, who sits ruffled in a wind battered parka and faded jeans, indicating at him to sit next to him with a glare. It's not familiar, and it's really uncomfortable.

He slides precariously in the seat next to his, perching on the edge cautiously. Jinyoung sighs and as shocking as it is, remains civil. 

"So, as you remember from yesterday I've been blackmailed into believing that there is the _incredibly_ slim possibility that you aren't the Ass that you are, and to give a you a 'chance' on a, quote unquote, 'man date'," he speaks quickly, avoiding his eyes, "Though I doubt it with the way you've been treating me."

Jaebum frowns, "And how have I been treating you?"

Jinyoung sits with his jaw resting in his hand and his elbow on the table, peering sidelong at him with a subtle air of judgement and distrust, one leg crossed over the other and fingers tapping soundlessly against plastic. His parka is a nice olive colour but his shirt is a dull grey; the rips in his jeans give a rare glimpse of smooth skin and muscle, somehow scandalous to even glance at. His bag, still unzipped and gracelessly slumped on the floor, show no signs of Lace or leaf peeking from inside.

"Don't act stupid," he says, "and why do you smell like a middle-aged man?"

"Subways. They always smell like this."

"What, your helicopter was out of commission? Did you chauffeur call in sick?"

Jaebum rolls his eyes, "No, I take the commute everyday."

"Huh," a little crease appears on his forehead and Jaebum repels the urge to reach over and smooth it away, "Why?"

Jaebum shrugs off his coat and unzips his bag, reaching in for his notes and trying not to rip the creasing paper. "Because the school doesn't have a helipad and I'm afraid that my mile long limousine will cause major congestion on the roads, but I don't want to downgrade to my ferrari or porsche since they're merely gifts from my widowed grandmother. And I have more than one chauffeur, ten actually, descending from generations of limousine drivers dedicated to my family."

There's a deadbeat silence in which Jinyoung's mouth falls open slightly. "You're just playing with me, aren't you?"

Jaebum laughs, shoulders shaking, and Jinyoung's ears turn pink at the tips. "Where should we meet next week?" he asks, turning his attention to the front of the hall where their professor strides in, a small blue daisy pinned to his lapel. 

 

"In hell, I hope." Jinyoung says, a wry quirk to his lips.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as promised, two weeks later an update \o/


	4. the one with the fishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the ocean is deep and the sky is blue, new leafs are hard to turn, but what else is new?

Regretfully, Jaebum knows he's bitten off more than he could ever possibly chew when he wakes up at the crack of dawn and there's only one thing stewing on his mind.

A steely blue bleeds through his curtains along with the chilly morning breeze, as unthawed as the night's and he could just feel a cold crawling into his system with an odd pressure at the base of his throat and chest. Maybe they were merely just nervous lumps. What the hell had he gotten himself into.

He fumbles in the half light for his phone somewhere on his bedside table, between his novels and earphones and other accumulated crap, and feels around the metal chassis to switch it on, the light stabbing his eyes. He squints, pulling up the text from the previous night.

 

**8:36 PM**

**From:** Unknown Number

hi Ass its me. I'm setting down ground rules

 

**8:38 PM**

**From:** that guy

no crowded places  
no loud noises  
no fancy dress code  
no helicopter/limousine/thoroughbred horse  
it has to be cheap unless you're paying then I dont care  
I refuse to sit for 2 hrs with you in a cinema

 

 

It's wasn't reassuring, the realisation that he himself had no experience of setting up dates, not that this was a _date_ , and that he was accustomed to just having them thrown at him.

Without an afterthought, he had been foolish enough to call his mother to cancel any girlfriend-appointments, and on a whim admitted it was because he had someone else to meet up with. That error had resulted in a silent crackling over the phone for a good solid minute before said mother flung herself into his own personal Q and A panel. _What's her name? What's her level of education?  Does she have a tattoo? Do you want my_ _assistant_ _to_ _run a_ _background check? Just in case of course, honey, I'm sure you have great_ _taste_ _._

Jaebum had carefully omitted that it wasn't really a date and that Jinyoung wasn't really a girl. He's not too sure why, probably just to save face from embarrassment by revealing that his first self-established date ended up being with someone who hated his guts. The socialites would have a field day with that, chuckling haughtily whilst throwing back crystal flutes of champagne, whispering in conspiracy _Have you heard of the Ims' only son? A closeted homosexual with masochistic tendencies! Who would have thought? It's always the reserved ones that are the_ _nut job_ _ _s__ _,_ _aren't_ _they?_

He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and rereads the text for the _n_ th time. Tomorrow was Sunday and he was at lost to what to do, what to say, hell, what to wear even. It was like he was a fourteen-year-old tween picking an outfit for a crap date to a shopping mall.

There was no way he was going to ask Jinyoung what to do, unless he wanted to be roasted over the phone, and he guesses he could ask Youngjae but the boy was more likely to hide from a girl than ask them out. The most logical candidate, as much as it pained him, was Jackson. His friend didn't really do long term, there were more numerous flings with people here and there like the occasional peppering on a dish, a little spice to liven things up but not to overwhelm. Good thing Jaebum wasn't exactly looking for long term.

Clambering out of bed, he dials Jackson's number and pads awkwardly across the cold floorboards to his balcony. He leans against the railing, the cold metal and highrise wind like a breath of blue mint. The phone rings for a solid minute and Jaebum imagines Jackson tripping over discarded clothes and furrowing through cardboard pizza boxes and untouched mail, possibly halfway through a shirt and halfway through breakfast. Athletes.

"Yea?" Jackson sounds way too perky, way too loud and Jaebum holds the receiver back a little just to let the ringing in his ears buzz down.

"Hey, I need help." He sighs.

There's a pause for a moment, then a harsh breathy cackle sparks to life on the other end, and Jaebum can just picture his friend throwing his head back with childish glee, "I knew this day would come, the mighty king abdicates from his throne of immovable self-reliance to ask the fellow pauper."

"Shut up, Jackson," he grumbles, "If you were a pauper then I'd be no better than your landlord."

"Well thank my lucky stars, you penny-pinching cheapskate. So what d'ya need?"

Jaebum peers over the edge of the railing and he can see the city landscape reflected in muted colours and refracted colours in the glass, cars and joggers run in parallel lines across the grey below. The cold wind licks at him, tugging at his shirt and hair, and he thinks about how it's an awfully long way down.

"You've asked people out, right?" Jackson snorts on the other end, "Well, what do you do?"

"Did your mother finally let go of your hand and make you plan something yourself? I'm proud."

"Uh, no. My mom didn't find this one." His mother, no. A sneaky florist, maybe.

"Wait, you're telling me you found one by yourself?," there's a slight intake of breath that Jaebum finds a kind of insulting, "So this is what mother birds feel when their baby birds leave the nest."

Jaebum rolls his eyes so far back he sees black.

"I just..." he waves his hand around even though there's no way Jackson can see him, "It's just, _I don't know what to do_."

He hears shuffling and Jackson sitting down on his overly-large and over-priced leather couch, probably kicking his legs up obnoxiously, "It'll just be like all your other outings. Go somewhere nice, wear something slightly metrosexual, flowers and all."

No, it really wouldn't be like the others, Jaebum thinks and what the hell--

"Metrosexual?" he looks down at his clothes.

"You didn't hear it from me. Anyway, who is the lucky girl? And by lucky I mean who sacrificed their principles?"

Jaebum isn't sure what to say. He could tell the truth, get an earful of _what the fuck_ and then have a debilitating hour or so of his sexuality being questioned and having to refute every word that comes out of his friend's mouth about how he obtained sexual gratification and really, it was just too early in the morning for that. He could lie, there's always that option and even though it would save his ass for the moment he knew it would come back and bite him back.

"Remember how two weeks ago we were at that shit coffeehouse?"

"Yeah, the one that charged me three dollars extra because I wanted ten chocolate chips instead of the standard seven? What, did you spot your fine honey there?"

"God, why am I friends with you."

"Woah, you can just call me Jackson, no need for formalities."

" _Anyway_ , you know how I asked if you knew Park Jinyoung?"

There's no reply, just the faint crackle of static and what appears to be the television switched on, and Jaebum wonders if Jackson had accidentally fallen off of the face of the earth, or in a sudden bout of narcolepsy had fallen asleep. Then, like someone had jolted him awake, there's a flurry of movement.

"Are you telling me - Jinyoung? You're going out with Jinyoung?"

"Well I wouldn't say going out, but I did accidentally get a date with him?"

Another silence persists and Jaebum begins to feel an odd cocktail of annoyance and unforeshadowed worry beginning to brew in the pit of his stomach, churning in unnatural waves, "Jackson, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," his voice is muddled like he'd just woken up and was tripping over half-coherent thoughts, "It's just, doesn't he hate your guts?"

"Believe me, when I tell you he has as much a part in this as I do."

"So you're asking me for advice on how to go on a 'date' with someone who doesn't want to and would rather drop kick you out of your private jet than remain in the same vicinity as you."

"I don't think Jinyoung would go for first-degree murder, but yeah."

"Jinyoung would totally go for first-degree murder."

Jaebum doesn't ask how he knows that. He leans away from the railing. The city was swathed in a syrupy gold and blue, thick clouds hung heavy on the horizon like creeping hills, a reminder that the seasons were still out of sync, as if someone entity had switched the winds and air pressures and turned the earth on its axis, tilting the laws of the universe to mess with the equinox.

When he steps back into his room he's plunged into a deafening silence, the winds and sounds disappearing behind a panel of thick glass and he feels his head spin, his body re-orienteering itself.

"What do you want to do? You want to bury the hatchet, right?" Jackson sounded tired, as if he was a couples counselor and Jaebum was a hopeless romantic, "Just take him somewhere where you'd take a friend, keep cool, and don't do anything stupid."

"Who do you think you're talking to?"

Jackson sighs, "Exactly. Have fun you sappy bastard."

 

 

 

Compared to the week before, the park was bursting in hurricanes of chartreuse leaves  and sheets of tinted colours, a slow unraveling of winter's grip amidst coatings of frosted dew.

Jinyoung stood beneath an old birch with his hands buried in the deep of his pockets, idly studying dog walkers and their leather-collared dogs, the exhausted night shifters napping on benches, along with the occasional walker of the shame. He looks too young, Jaebum thinks, a lost boy in the woods with his cheeks nipped red, the defined curve of his jaw and the arch of his neck hidden behind a maroon muffler and the usual icy set of his eyes melted into a calmer, almost gentler gaze.

He swallows thickly, pushing as much nonchalance as he could into his stride, "Hi." he says. Smooth, simple, nothing to nit-pick at.

"Hi," the man doesn't look him in the eye and instead drills in on at some distance behind him, "Let's just do this. Where are we going?" and he starts to walk off in hurried steps, attempting to enforce distance between them. Jaebum walks up to his side, letting his pace synch into disharmony with his.

"I thought we could go somewhere simple, like the new aquarium a few blocks down." 

"Aquarium? We're not middle schoolers, you know." Jaebum bites the inside of his cheek, a little miffed.

He may or may not have had to browse the internet and it's collection of tween dating advice columns, but in his defense, Jackson had suggested that they do extreme sports because, quote unquote, 'there's nothing that builds greater bonds than almost dying together.'

"Well if you don't want to go then I'll just have to call them up and cancel."

"Cancel what?"

Jaebum rubs the back of his neck, "You said you didn't want to be somewhere crowded so I kind of booked the place."

Abruptly, Jinyoung halts. "You __what__ _?_ "

Jaebum stops, shrugs and Jinyoung frowns, face pulled taught as he regarded him, a struggle seeming to wrangle within him. "How are we getting there?" he asks. He leans a little to the side to peer over his shoulder, probably on the lookout for some immaculate parade float that was meant to follow behind them or some ridiculous entourage of personal assistants on cell phones. Really, Jaebum thinks he should feel flattered.

"Walking?" he answers. The slight tension in Jinyoung's laxes.

"Thank god."

 

 

 

The aquarium, as expected, is empty as the open ocean itself when they arrive. It's spooky in a way, with nothing but the bare caress of cool flowing air and the blue linoleum floor glinting under white lights; a glass ceiling watches over them, beams of sunlight falling into pools around them. The place is immaculately clean as if someone had flooded the entire building with blue chemicals and polish, leaving the faint residue of pine, lemon and windex permeating like a stench.

"I can't believe you rented a goddamn aquarium for one day."

Jaebum can't tell whether Jinyoung's in awe, annoyance or a grudging combination of both. It's hard to tell with the way his arms are folded in front of his chest in an immovable stance but the tremor of childlike anticipation in his voice seemed to speak otherwise, fighting back the quirk of his lips and the fidget of his fingers. It's kind of cute, Jaebum kind of admits. Somewhere deep, deep down.

"How the hell did you do it?" Jinyoung takes the first steps forward, following the dolphin caricatures that line the walls, swimming in pods towards, ironically, the shark displays. His sneakers squeak against the walls and he moves like an apparition, a blurry afterimage follows him, reflected down in the tiles. Jaebum follows him.

"What do you mean?"

"If you weren't aware, normal people don't rent entire businesses for a day. Especially when said businesses get their entire revenue from, gee I don't know, people."

"We're two people." Jinyoung gives him a look and he laughs tartly, "Yeah, okay, whatever. I just called them up."

Jinyoung flounders, throwing his hands up in disbelief, "What? _Called them up_? That's insane. You had to _at least_ cover everyone's day's pay and the daily earnings not to mention maintenance costs and--"

"Yeah, pretty much. Plus our tickets."

There's an ambivalence bordering on nasty disbelief on the other man's expression, marring his soft lines into something crystal cut, like he couldn't comprehend why Jaebum would ever l do him a favour. Maybe.

Shadows swarms over them as the sky glass overhead disappears from sight and they walk into a vacant pathway. An ultramarine glow swallows them and the great blue expanse of the tanks emerge like illuminated walls.

Lithe grey sharks cruise by in between forests of high reaching kelp and branches of mottled rocky coral like streamlined bullets. Coming to a stop in the center of the room, Jaebum watches with bated breath as Jinyoung trails his eyes across the panorama, across the prisms of sunset red veins and myrtle green plumes, the clustered plates and dotted stars corals in dappled rose and amber, lingering on the washes of blue and glimpses of contoured silver, and he feels a solid calm wash through his bloodstream. He gazes upwards and the sharks look back, black eyes watchful and curious.

At a respectable distance Jaebum stands next to Jinyoung and he mirrors the arch of his neck. A short navy figure glides across, scissoring through the water with the lash of its tail.

"It's a basking shark." The reflected light moves in distorted streaks across Jinyoung's body like ripples of lightning, an ozone blue paints his scarf a rich evening purple. Surprised that he wanted to talk, Jaebum blurts the first thing that comes to mind.

"What the hell?"

He really wants to kick himself off a cliff. God, he was such a mess. He was trying to bury the hatchet not hack himself bloody with embarrassment. Jinyoung doesn't attempt to hide the deadpan on his face.

"Well, it was worth a shot," he heaves a sigh and presses his hand against the glass, looking him in the face, "but clearly you don't seem to be in the mood to reconciliate--"

"Wait, no. I mean, yeah, I do. I do wanna talk."

Jinyoung smiles at him with an assortment of mirth and snide, lips a rosy coral and skin a mellow sky, and Jaebum swallows deeply.

 

 

"I've known Youngjae for years, he's a family friend. Kind of."

Moon coloured jellyfish pulse by Jaebum's head like hallucinations, wakes of transparent thread ebb and flow like strands of silk, painting a foaming dreamscape.

"And how are you 'kind of' a family friend?"

The white of Jinyoung's sneakers glow in the blacklight like ghosts. The jellyfish cluster into small galaxies, reminiscent of paper lanterns burning in streams across the evening sky, and Jaebum walks beside him, hands behind his back and their steps a casual stroll. A vivid purple frays his sight in burns of ultraviolet.

"I mean that my parents adore him like a second son. So he's really more of a brother to me." he splits a warm smile, hidden in the dark.

Jinyoung hums, a pretty lilt of his voice. "He sounds a lot sweeter than you, hopefully you're not influencing him." he quirks an eyebrow, half his face lost in the damp glow and the other in shadow.

"I can be sweet too," Wow, Jaebum could taste the bullshit on his tongue.

"Right, of course, mister piercings and dyed hair and hipster black clothing. Should I add a teaspoon of sugar to your straight black espresso, or is that not enough?"

Jaebum can't help his laugh, really, he can't.

 

 

"Mark hyung?" A starfish sits on the flat of Jinyoung's outstretched palm, mottled in greys and peaches and rocky to the touch.

"Yeah, Mark." Jaebum shrugs off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves, coming to awkwardly kneel beside the other and dip his fingers into the reconstructed rock pools. All of a sudden Jinyoung grabs his wrist and jerks his arm away.

"Your watch," It's almost scolding, the frown on his face, and Jaebum has enough dignity to keep his mouth shut. He wasn't used to being aware of money and the price of things, not like how Jinyoung was who was even more conscious to his belongings than he himself was.

He tries not to burn holes into wrist; his throat grows parched. Jinyoung lets go.

He slips the hefty metal off his wrist and pockets it. "Thanks, I forgot I was wearing it."

Jinyoung rolls his eyes, "Your the only person I know who would forget they're wearing a watch that's worth probably more than my life." 

It's fortunate that somewhere between the seahorses and sea urchins that Jaebum's brain to mouth filter began to kick in because he swears he almost blurts out a _you're worth more than that_ and he would prefer not having to then subsequently avoid Jinyoung for the rest of his life because he really does want to keep his attendance record up and pass his classes.

"You just acknowledged my existence," he says instead, "I'm touched."

The man purses his lips and Jaebum can almost see him chewing his tongue ruefully at the quip. "What about Mark, anyway?" he turns his attention back to the creature in his hand, lowering it back to the sandy bottom.

"What's the story?" he reaches out to feel the sleek surface of a ray pass by, grungy yellow and static blue dots, like a horrible contemporary painting or wallpaper his aunts would buy.

"There's not much to tell. His family moved here from California, the flower shop is a family business and he's helping out,"

"There's no way he wants to help out at a flower shop all his life."

"He doesn't," Jinyoung sniffs, protective, "Hyung is quiet, but he's actually really strong and I know he has a lot of goals for himself, even if he doesnt really talk about them."

"What about you? You don't even work at the shop."

He thinks back to their first encounter and from the subtle smirk that Jinyoung was trying to hide, Jaebum knows he is too. "I have plans as well."

"Care to share?"

"Not really, no."

"Humour me, pretend you don't want to dropkick me into the shark tank."

There's a funny little jolt in his chest when he sees the corner of Jinyoung's lips quirk upwards.

"Okay, let's say I don't and I told you that I wanted to be an actor."

"I'd say you're not very good at hiding your contempt for me."

Jinyoung huffs, "And I'd say that I wasn't even trying." He flicks a hand at him, splashing droplets of water onto his face and neck. Jaebum splutters and in his surprise, loses his balance and falls on his ass, shocked. He stares wide-eyed as Jinyoung's face lights up, eyes crinkling into crescents and his usually sullen mouth twists upwards in a laugh and Jaebum, in his daze, forgets to fight down the airy bubble thats threatening to suffocate his lungs. The tips of his ears grow warm and the room began to grow muggy.

Jinyoung grins wolfishly at him, "You should have seen your _face_."

Jaebum splashes water onto his shoes.

 

 

"--So you're telling me that Jackson almost ran away with the circus, some kid named Bambam almost got trampled by an elephant and--" Jinyoung has to stop to breathe, a hand hiding a grin brimming with airy laughter, "and you had your date ruin your dumb ass shirt with soda."

Jaebum grumbles, "That shirt was made of imported silk and it cost a fortune." His fingers gripe at the memory of sticky brown cola printed into the fine material, leaving sugary residue on his skin and matting his hair together into uncomfortable clumps. He was never going to forgive that girl.

"And you wore that to a shitty circus?"

"I didn't _know_ where we were going, okay? That's why I'm never asking Jackson to bail me out in person again."

Snickering, Jinyoung looks him in the eyes, brown eyes reflecting sapphire black, and without hesitance, Jaebum smiles back.

An ocean sits around them, separated only by inches of glass and the curved spines of metal. Schools of fish flash across his sight, scales glinting like gemstones in pulses of colours from electric yellows to navy blues, darting between landscapes of tawny peach coral and cyan green kelp like a toxic wasteland springing forth flowers. Shadows pass overhead like looming clouds, silhouettes of whale sharks and hammerheads and manta rays the size of kites fly by in a silent parade.

Jaebum lays his hand on the cool surface, feeling a soothing calm melt at his skin.

Jinyoung unwinds his scarf and lets it sit loosely on his narrow shoulders, exposing his neck to the alien blue glow. "How is Jackson anyway?" he asks, almost nervously.

"Huh?" Jaebum was startled, he wasn't even aware that the two knew each other and with how the other was looking at him curiously, his reaction was unexpected as well, and Jinyoung frowns, eyes reverting back their narrowed pierce. Piecing him together.

"He's good. He's doing good." he mumbles, thoughts beginning to convolute with questions. Why had Jackson acted like he wasn't close with Jinyoung when he'd asked? A morbid suspicion festered inside him, recounting how quickly he had been to switch topics instead of nosing deeper.

He stops walking. In front of him with rigid arms and an unimpressed air tensing around him, Jinyoung stood eye-to-eye with him. Jaebum swears, in a flickering niche of time, he sees something almost like a hurt ghost through the other's eyes.

"What's going on? Tell me." he bites his words like bitter acrid, like it scratched his tongue, like they ached his teeth.

"Jinyoung?"

"Is this a joke? Well, you can quit it now," his eyes look away to the water, cracking the glass with the temper of his glower, "You didn't need to do all of this just to mess with me, you know."

"Jinyoung, what's going on? I don't know you're trying to say." There's something piercing the tissue of his lungs, a sharp knitting pain, and he can feel the slow drown of air seeping out of his body. Words die on the precipice of his mouth when he sees the man in front him begin to shut him out again, a door slamming closed and shutters rolling down. The enclosure around them cracks like ice and he can see the floodwaters break loose and swallow them whole, sharks and iron and all.

"First you disappear and I thought good fucking riddance, but then you just come back all of a sudden and Jackson--" he stops himself and tugs his scarf off, gaze unfocused and tracing strange shapes in the water, "Whatever. It doesn't matter. I'm going home."

Panic bites through the thick red of his heart. Jinyoung turns to leave. "Wait, wait. Jinyoung what are you saying? What do you mean I disappeared--"

He catches his elbow in his hand but it slips away like a dream. Jinyoung turns his head, about to snap but his words wither upon seeing him, a furrow creasing between his brows.

"Jaebum," his name sounds so sweet and red in his voice, like a scalpel running down his neck, "I'm going home."

 

 

 

**4:21 PM**

**From:** jackson

hey hey howd it go

 

**4:27 PM**

**From:** jackson

did u get ur ass beat or

 

**4:27 PM**

**From:** jackson

r u lying in a ditch somewhere

 

 

The flowers on his balcony, on his windowsill, in his kitchen are dyed with spectrums of vivid purples and violets and thunderstorm blues. He leaves all his windows and doors open and his apartment breathes in an airy ambiance; leaves and petals shake and shiver restlessly, scattering across his floors like summer rain.

Jaebum lounges in his bed, staring at the screen of his phone until the white and black blurs into red and green and blue.

He knew, was as certain as concrete, that Jackson knew something. It gnawed really, grated at his bones that there was this _secret_ simmering beneath surface, he could already feel its heat radiating off onto him. Something Jackson wasn't telling him about. Whatever it was, it was messing with Jinyoung and now it was really messing with him.

His phone buzzes again. He doesn't want to talk.

( _hey if ur not dead lets get pizza tonight)_

A tinny voice in the back of his head, rolling with a grudging honesty, weasled to him that loud-mouthed Jackson never kept secrets unless he had to. That whatever this was, whatever was fueling Jinyoung's irritation and Jackson's obliviousness, was being hidden from him for a reason. An angry guilt roils in his stomach, a sour bile driving him nauseous.

The red embers that claw along his arms slowly dull and harden to black rock. He could trust Jackson, he could wait. For now.

 

 

 

As soon as Jaebum walks into his Monday morning lecture hall, he sees bellflowers wrapped in twine sitting on his professor's desk, with one stalk tucked in the pocket of their blazer like how child might tuck a lollipop.

The room is barely filled, he was a lot earlier than usual, being unable to fall back into his fretful sleep when he woke at dawn's first rays.

Without knowing, he hovers for a moment longer than he should have beside where Jinyoung usually sat, the seat and desk bare from its usual inhabitant and his erratic scrawlings and papers. He tears his eyes away and sits somewhere close to the back where a half shadow hid the hungover nappers and bored doodlers.

Worry begins to niggle at him when the lesson begins and Jinyoung still hadn't shown up. His notebook remains empty, blank pages and empty lines screaming at him in white spaces, and he clicks his pen erratically, eyes glancing at the door and waiting for it open, waiting for Jinyoung  to appear.

He would be lying if he thought it _wasn't_ his business. Clearly in some way, in some happening, in some timeline he had hurt Jinyoung before and now he'd done it again. Some how.

The old doors creak open and Jaebum looks up from the wood grain of his desk to see a familiar head peak out. Jinyoung bows, flustered, at the professor and hurriedly ascends the stairs. Jaebum catches his eye and both of them freeze, unsure.

Expression unreadable, Jinyoung is the first to move, looking at the floor and slipping into his seat.

He doesn't glance back again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this a day late!! i lost a day of proofreading bcus fly trailer made me a mess orz
> 
> sorry if the editing is a mish mash im half delirious with a cold cries but hey its like 1k longer than usual oops


	5. the one with four cups of coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sunbeams and secrets are all ours to keep, but the patience of others can only run so deep

For a hazy minute Jaebum has no idea where he is. It slowly seeps into him, the scuffed oak and dusty papers, the hints of almond and coffee and smudged red ink settling into the carpet. He sits up and blinks blearily. The campus library with its muggy air and dimly lit study lamps always seemed to weigh down on his eyelids as soon as he entered and even more so now with continuously shit sleep he'd been getting, constantly waking up in the middle of the night with sore throats, cold sweats and a dull ache in his rib cage. He'd never been more acquainted to three in the morning and blinking lights of passing airplanes in his life.

He's unsure why he can't get more than four hours of continuous sleep. It might be school stress, some genetically predispositioned ailment or maybe he's waking from a repetitive amnesia-inducing nightmare. Whatever it was, he hoped it would pass soon because if anyone caught a whiff of it he'd go through the tedious activity of receiving a phone call from his parents every morning asking for his condition next to a consulting physician until his mother caved, and then he would be flown over that one private family doctor that, for some reason, didn't live in Korea. His attendance was already starting to get spotty, what with all the ignored alarms.

Beside him he can hear the dull, ineligible chicken scratch of pencil on paper and he turns his head see Youngjae with half of his fringe fluffed wildly, from continuously threading his fingers through them no doubt, and the pink tip of a tongue peeking out as he glared critically at his work. There's a smudge of grey on the side of his hand, working its way down to his wrist from where he rested his arm on his papers.

"Rise and shine, hyung. Nice nap?" the younger mumbles, flipping through his sheets.

Jaebum makes a tired noise, halfway between a grunt and a _yes_ before leaning towards him.

"What are you composing?" he catches the sight of smudged quavers, scattered ledger lines and the scrawl of lyrics before an arm flies over and blocks them from view.

"Yah, don't look!" the younger cries and everyone in the vicinity whips their heads around, glaring at the two of them. The back of his neck prickles with the focused glower and the disdained hint of a raised lip from the head librarian. Heat rushes to Youngjae's cheeks and he huffs, looking like an embarrassed pumpkin in his over-sized puff of an orange jacket. It wasn't like he had asked for an ongoing feud with the staff. 

Jaebum laughs at him voicelessly, shoulders shrugging as he reassuringly pats his back.

"Don't pity me, hyung," the younger whines, before reaching out from under his notes to check his phone. "Jackson should be here by now."

"Huh, why is he coming?" he wasn't exactly the best study partner for a library, that was learnt quickly enough.

The other shrugs, now distracted by pictures of puppies, "Said he had something  _extremely_ important to do. God knows what, probably a taco joint he wants to ravage and take advantage of a three-for-one deal by taking us with him."

A buoyant worry begins floating in his chest. Jackson was probably not dragging his ass outside for tacos. Jaebum knows the man is full of good intentions but a meddler was a meddler, and really, he was fine with how things were. Absolutely okay with it. If there was a time he lived peacefully then there was no reason why he couldn't return to it.

There's a faint thudding noise, something hurried and muffled like a dog scrabbling on carpet and before Jaebum could look up, there's a blur of movement and Jackson materialises before his eyes and slams four coffee cups onto the table. They jump in their holders but by some act of divinity nothing spills, however, the heat of the librarian's stare rises ten fold and shit, the last thing he needed was a ban from the prime napping area on campus.

"Jaebum ssi, I have a proposition you can't refuse." Jackson puts his hands on his hips, grinning wildly in his windblown hair and ruffled collars and Jaebum arches an expectant eyebrow.

"That I can drink four coffee cups in less than a minute?"

"What, no? These aren't for you, buy your own caffeine." Jackson snorts and Jaebum really hopes they aren't for him either, god help him if he ingested caffeine, "Anyway, stop snoring and come with me. We've got business to wrangle."

"What business?" He thinks of manila folders and dotted lines perched on varnished oak and he guesses maybe he was still in the safe zone.

Jackson sighs, "Not  _that_ business you doormat,  _real_ business."

Or not.

"Please, hyung, just go" Youngjae throws an arm up in exasperation, waving non-discreetly at the librarian hovering around their table like a predator waiting to swoop in the moment they breached another decibel, "I cannot get banned from the library and being associated with you two is really hurting my stance on that."

Hopping on his heels with childish zeal, Jackson pulls at his arm with one hand and picks up the coffee holder in the other with one fluid movement, balancing it precariously in his lax palm like an absent-minded waiter. Eyes still half-bleary and with a thick taste in his mouth, Jaebum allows himself to be dragged out of his seat, slipping on his winter coat and feeling the cool silk slide pass his skin as he quietly fixes the rumples in his shirt.

He decides to humour his predictions, "Where are we heading?" he asks as they walk out the door, his question becoming half lost in an abrupt gust of wind, knocking the balance of his feet and feeling weightless for a slight moment.

"You'll see," Jackson yells above the immersive roar, the air wrapping around them in turbulent waves, "But I'm not taking responsibility for hospital bills."

"Great," he follows him across the green and away from campus, down the main road and pass stray trickles of grey light and grey offices and red-cheeked passersby. "At least buy me flowers and a card."

Jackson barks a high pitched laugh, too much like the whiny cackle of a hyena to be harmless.

 

 

 

Most of the walk is spent with Jackson trying to talk and Jaebum trying to listen, their words snared by the wind into something fleeting and indiscernible, washed away behind like the rush of a stream. All his suspicions are confirmed the further they walk, past the tumbling newspapers and bending lamp posts and he recalls the familiar pathway: past the vacant green and magnolias, down the road and then soon enough around the corner and across the street.

As he had guessed, Jackson was trying to fix things for him with his smiles and insistent nudges and, apparently, four cups of coffee with too much cream and caramel. A flicker of irritation kindles alight within him, and he thinks of a few days ago with Jinyoung's face twisted with mistrust and an angry blue scowling behind him, of Jackson that particular morning, fumbling over his name and even weeks before that, silently avoiding his eyes and switching conversations at the mere mention. He doesn't know how to feel about this, doesn't know whether to allow himself to pry about their mysterious history. It's petty, but he feels left out, like the unwanted friend in the circle. 

He stops walking and the wind takes an abrupt turn, knocking his hair into his face and fringing his sight. Jackson stops as well, eyebrow knitted and coffee shivering in their loose cardboard. His cap threatens to fly off his head, flimsy in the gale.

"You don't have to." Jaebum says firmly, "You don't need to fix my fuck ups."

Jackson attempts to smile, but it looks more like a grimace, "Yes, I do. This is my responsibility, cleaning up our messes." 

He sighs, "I sure hope you know what you're doing."

"It's better this than you being mopey all week."

He had _not_ been mopey. "I've just been tired."

"Right, you've been just peachy," Jackson rolls his eyes, "Well, I for one don't want limp noodles for friends and I'm going to put things right, the way they should have been from the start."

Jaebum hums skeptically. The sentimentality was a little over the top and with the glassy absence in his eyes, things appeared to run deeper than he thought. The two of them stay silent for a while and it dawns on Jaebum how immovable Jackson looked at the moment. Like a ridiculous contemporary statue in a loose sweater and sneakers holding onto mediocre coffee. 

"Jackson, there's something you want to tell me." it's not a question.

The other startles, snapping out of his trance and he falters for moment, mouth opening and closing before he picks himself back up again, "Yeah," he smiles, "I can't believe I'm playing matchmaker to you like I'm your nanny." he fires too quickly.

Jaebum sighs. "I'm not happy about this," and he moves forward, settling once more by Jackson's side.

"You're going to have deal with this one day." 

"Not if I can help it."

"If only you could."

He doesn't respond and instead lets a tangible silence fall, pretending the winds between them were ghosts of words unsaid. 

 

 

 

When the two of them stumble in the flower shop, the crinkle of the bell is lost to their heavy footsteps and the bang of the door flinging shut. Jaebum inhales, warm and balmy air flooding through his lungs, fresh with nectars and perfumes. Setting the now lukewarm coffee on the ground, Jackson takes off his cap and shakes his head like a wet dog before meticulously running a hand through his hair and returning his hat to his head. He picks up the drinks, jumping right back up with a spring, a devilishly charming smile twisted on his lips.

Mark is yet again the counter, eyeing the two of them wearily with his mouth glued shut into an ambivalent straight line. It's more than likely that Jinyoung dished everything that happened those few days ago in complete bias and over-exaggeration and, like any good friend, Mark no doubt suspected Jaebum to be an absolute asshole. Which doesn't stop Jackson from marching straight up the counter, sliding the coffees towards the other and reaching out a hand with sunbeams shining from his face.

"Hi, I'm Jackson, you must be Mark." he simpers.

Jaebum can feel his soul crumple when all the other man does is stare at the extended hand like it had sprouted in front of him. Mark's eyes trail to look into his, wary and inquiring, before back to Jackson's beaming face and then down towards his hand. He shakes it briefly, delicately.

"You see, I'm here on behalf of Jaebum, even though he doesn't know it, to apologise for whatever he has or hasn't done. Please, take these--," he taps the drinks, "and mull over your forgiveness whilst drinking over these complementary coffees with Jinyoung."

God, Jaebum had an air hostess for a best friend. He brings a hand to his face, rubbing at his temples as the heavy musk of hyacinths and jasmine diffuse into the marrow of his bone. Mark nods, soaking all the buoyancy in. 

"Jinyoung's on the roof in the greenhouse," Mark turns to look at him, "I'll let you two figure out your melodrama on your own."

He nods, tight lipped and slips behind the counter and to the _employees only_ door. The brass handle is uncharacteristically cold in his hand.

"Did you know flowers are the reproductive organs of some plants?" is the last thing he hears before he closes the door behind him.

 

 

 

The staircase to the roof is semi-hazardous, a serious breach in safety Jaebum reckons and he is genuinely concerned how much longer Mark and Jinyoung have left to live if they kept treading up and down the place. When he opens the door rough winds slap at his face and he has to squint before he sees the greenhouse, standing bare to the city horizon and taking up half the roof. It's not too shabby, he'd seen better ones when his father took him abroad on some business trip about environmental sustainability ("the future is ours to invest"). The glass isn't as crystal and the metal is pigmented with scratches of rust but it still gleams in the pale sunlight, beams filtering through like lamp shades.

As he enters, a clammy stillness engulfs him and he closes the door with a banging rattle, the wind slamming it shut. He cringes. The howling outside is muffled like a parade of hauntings behind the glass. He strips off his coat, eyes grazing over the interior with its impeccably neat rows of summer flowers, slowly undulating underneath rotating fans like small oceans, and the loose soil tipped onto the cement that crunched beneath his shoes.

The rustle of foliage in a far corner catches his eye and he turns to see Jinyoung appear from behind a cluster of white geraniums, earphones planted in and deeply immersed. He doesn't catch sight of Jaebum until he turns and he appears in the corners of his crescent eyes. He starts, almost dropping the small shears in his hands and his eyes widen into full moons. He takes out his earphones tentatively and pockets them.

"Hey," he murmurs, as if unsure Jaebum was actually there or if he was a figment of his imagination.

"Hey," Jaebum says, trying to smile back, "Mark said I could help."

"Oh," Jinyoung turns back to the plants, inspecting the leaves with a careful eye, "That's nice, but do you know anything about gardening?"

Jaebum feels a heat prickle at the back of his neck and he fights the urge to scratch it, "I'm a fast learner?"

He expects to get an immediate rejection but all Jinyoung does is study him, considering with the rise and fall of his eyes over his frame, and he shrugs. "Okay, catch." He throws his shears towards him and Jaebum curses, dropping his coat (with that merino wool fabric and pure silk lining, tailor made by a family friend) onto the dirty, _dirty_ ground, and he catches the tool unscathed. He feels part relief that his hands aren't diced and dripping with blood, and part dead on the inside with the monumental dry cleaning bill he would have to fork over. Jinyoung notices the crestfall of his eyes and raises an eyebrow.

"Sorry, was that coat expensive?" he doesn't sound  _that_ sorry, but it's still touching, really, this development.

Shrugging, Jaebum picks up the clothing and drapes it on a nearby bench, tearing his eyes from the patches of dirt and murky water, "Nah, you just startled me. What are you doing?" he walks over to stand beside him, making sure a nervous distance stood between them. 

"Checking for damaged parts and pests," he picks at a leaf coloured brown and sickly yellow, showing it to him before reaching for his back pocket to retrieve another pair of shears (another health hazard, Jaebum muses) and snips it cleanly off, "if it looks shriveled or dead then cut it and try to do it as close as you can to the stem. Not hard at all."

Nodding along, Jaebum watches him through his peripherals whilst listening to his instructions, a sweet and calming steadiness to his voice that melted with the faint whir of the fans above and the bay of the wind tapping at the glass; muted shadows rolled across them from the clouds overhead and Jaebum notices how lovely Jinyoung's fingers are, elegant and tapering, moving with confidence and ease amongst the foliage.

"Are you gonna stare or prune?"

Jaebum looks up to see Jinyoung's pursed pink lips, his eyes brown in the light and a lot closer than he last remembered. He clears his throat, backs away and looks down, amateurishly snipping a leaf. Jinyoung chuckles, amused, and it's pretty,  like music.

They work, or really Jinyoung works with a systematic practice, head bowed and skeptically narrowed eyes, and Jaebum alternates between fiddling with leaves, awkwardly cutting and watching the other. Lost in a trance of wilting leaves and cloud white petals, Jinyoung begins to fidget and Jaebum can see in the corner of his eye that the other man was growing restless and starting to glance back at him, a worried dimple gnawing into his cheek as he chewed on his bottom lip.

"Hey," he breaks their silence, "uhm, Jaebum,"

He looks up, a pleasant buzz in his ears from hearing his name. "Yes?"

Jinyoung sets down his shears and keeps his eyes trained on the plants, "I'm sorry." he swallows thickly. 

Jaebum copies his action but stares at him, curious, "Where is this coming from?"

"The day of our man--that day we went to the aquarium, after I left I thought a lot. You haven't been yourself, well, you haven't been the self that I saw you as since you left last year, which is a dick by the way. But that's the thing, you don't even know that you'd disappeared, you didn't know who I was and I don't think you even remember Mark hyung either. So I need to know, is this some elaborate prank that you're doing to fuck me over or, if I can know, did something actually happen to you?"

It's the same conversation, the same facts laid in front of him of vanishings and blurry faces like redundant case files, with names scratched out and details inked over and Jaebum still can't say a single thing because he doesn't fucking know either. He wants to tear at his skin.

"If you can't tell me because you don't want to talk about it with me I guess that makes sense. I have been kind of an ass, I mean, Mark hyung is the one that said that but after having the last few days to mull over everything, I guess he's kind of right because I was too pissed to consider that maybe something actually--"

With all the blabbering and half-assed self-defense, Jaebum guesses Jinyoung wasn't exactly acquainted with the art of apologising but nonetheless the attempt still sort of touched his heart, mixing in oddly with the now simmering broth of anxiety and frustration that had settled to brew weeks ago.

"Jinyoung," he cuts in and the other man stops mid-sentence about how Mark-is-usually-right-but-not-always-right-and-that's-what-matters, "Here's what I know."

They look at one another and the geraniums seem to glow white. 

"You say that we've already met in our first year of uni and it seems that we probably wanted to skin each other alive, and I don't recall that. For all I know you could be an amazing actor and this is a huge joke on me too. So, lets say that it's true: I met you and Mark last year."

"You did. You used to come to our shop before, but I don't think you guys ever talked or were introduced. Mark's sort of shy, but he liked to mention you to me all the time. God knows why, he's a probable sadist."

Considering their forced date, that actually seemed plausible enough despite his exterior, "Okay, and it seems that you and Jackson also met last year." A frown sculpts into Jinyoung's face and he replies curtly.

"We were friends."

"What happened?"

"Like I told you, you disappeared. You stopped going to Mark's store, you stopped talking to me, then you were gone overnight and Jackson stopped talking to me too. For a whole month, I think, I didn't see you and I don't know where you went," he sighs, "How do you not know this?"

He tries not to bite his tongue off, "Jackson knows what happened, but he hasn't said anything."

"Is he the only one that knows, or are there other people that might?"

He pauses. Nothing has changed between him and Youngjae, except now he had a lot more sass than he used to, that brat, all his classmates and professors had remained stagnant, his father had grown more wrinkles and sure he had more salt than pepper in his hair now but that was just aging. His mother, well she wasn't so insistent about dating and gossip as much as before now that he thought about it, but she was only concerned of his future and the length of how long his bachelor years would inevitably stretch into given his current prowess with relationships.

"He's the only one I'm sure of." he says finally.

The fans oscillate above them in steady beats and a delicate pulse of air ruffles the flowers in delicate sways, knocking at the tangible shores of their elbows and hands, "You're taking this quite nicely, considering you _have_ lost an entire chunk of your life," Jinyoung comments, picking at the stem of a flower. The pillow white of the petals reflect a light blue from his sweater. "Then again you didn't know you did until you met me, huh?" Jinyoung says a matter-of-factly, now running a finger over the dingy blade of his cutters.

"Don't say it like that," Jaebum doesn't want to admit it, but he'd preferred not thinking about his missing days at all. It was easier to run forwards, thrust himself into school work, eating junk and trying (and failing at) at keeping Jackson from influencing Youngjae. He didn't let his thoughts linger on Jinyoung, save for the quiet of restless nights, "it's not your fault or anything. Regardless, I would have found out eventually, and I don't regret it, re-meeting you that is."

Wow, that was cheesy.

The other man glances down, "Whatever." he says, looking embarrassed. Jaebum laughs and Jinyoung sniffs at him indignantly. "What do you think it is? Maybe you got in an accident, hit your head and you bruised your fat ego."

It's pretty insensitive considering he was attempting to apologise not ten minutes ago, but Jaebum was feeling better than he had for days and he tags along, strangely self-indulgent, "Maybe I got really sick, I heard some illnesses can cause forms of amnesia and I forgot all about my fat ego."

Jinyoung fails to contain his smile. It's lovely, the crinkle of his eyes and the bow of his lips, and he relaxes with a quiet exhale. Jaebum likes this. This quaint, calming air that finally chose to settle between the two of them like cool morning mist after weeks of barren days.

"Well, not to sound like I care or anything, but whatever it was it's over," Jinyoung scratches his cheek sheepishly, "Talk to Jackson, it's messing with him as much as it's messing with you. You'll be fine."

"Thanks," he says and the gales tap at them again, whirling like typhoons in a summer frenzy and he feels safe and cocooned in their shell, protected from the elements by a mere inch of glass, "but it's not like you care or anything."

"Exactly."

A silence passes like a gentle sleep between them and they keep there distance, slightly more companionable than the gaping rift that they had. The geraniums blur into mottled orchids, then into cups of yellow lilies and tapering ferns, lush and green and with leaves like fingers brushing at his wrists. Maybe lost in a daze, maybe forgetting he was there, Jinyoung softly begins to hum an unfamiliar tune under his breath. It's whimsical with sleepy lilts and a careful adagio and he wonders whether it's off the radio or off the top of his head, pliant to his mood and his thoughts.

The hibiscus' bloom like far-reaching umbrellas, unfurling with violent reds and tangerine borders like tacky Hawaiian shirts and Jaebum finds it hard to look at them. He blinks his eyes at the over-saturation, feeling a sore blur in his corneas. He needs more sleep, he deduces, he needs to get more rest. Something tickles his throat.

 

 

 

With Jinyoung's reminder that Jackson was as affected by his temperament as much as his own, Jaebum knew it was only a matter of time that he stopped his inconvenient two step dance of wanting to know the truth and wanting to live blindly. There was the universal code between friends that if it concerned him, then he had all the reason to know, wasn't there?

He was scared, he's not so repressed as to deny that, about what he might discover. Who even forgets an entire month of their life much less forgets people they've known for an entire year?

The most preposterous and plausible scenarios had skimmed his thoughts the previous night. His talk with Jinyoung had crept back into his head after he'd settled into his cold sheets (he'd left the window open and the open chill had crawled back in) and he had faced the reality he could be the victim of some tropical disease, potentially be that one-in-a-million patient that suffered a surgical mishap, maybe an alien abduction survivor or a witness to a government conspiracy. Fuck, he had no idea.

Selective amnesia didn't spread so far as to only wipe out only memories of particular people did it? 

A morning silence persisted throughout campus like a palpable fog and he knew that Jackson would be lurking around somewhere outside to cool off after fencing practice, gym bag slung over his shoulder and a weird spicy deodorant spritzed like ozone around him. The grass is slick underneath his shoes and he finds his friend underneath the shade of a tree, tapping feverishly on his phone.

"Jackson," he approaches, uncomfortably warm in his jacket and loose scarf, "Can I talk to you?"

His friend looks up from his device, a faint bluish light on his cheek from having his brightness on too high as always. "Sure, what's up."

Jaebum goes to stand next to him and looks out across the green, lest the shift of Jackson's expression caused him to back off with second doubts. "Tell it to me straight, you knew that Jinyoung and I weren't strangers when I first talked about him last month."

Tendrils of ivy creep along the steel columns of the science faculty across from them. The gardens have been increasingly unstable for the past weeks, overgrowth in the strangest of corners and flourishing in the absent backdrops of the shortcuts he'd frequent to. Jackson doesn't answer for a pregnant pause and in the vacancy of words, Jaebum wonders if the chrysanthemums were still blooming behind the humanities building.

"Yeah, I knew." Jaebum knows it's in Jackson's lionheart to tell the truth, and even now it doesn't fail.

"Care to tell me why you acted like you didn't?"

Jackson licks his lips, "It's complicated." He can hear the restraint in Jackson's voice, the careful calculation the same as the brief moments before he made a joke, deciding whether he was being too crass, too rude, if his remark would make another uncomfortable.

"You think it's more complicated for you or for me?"

"Don't make this sound simple,"

Jaebum barks a flat laugh and it scratches his throat. He turns an eye to the man beside him, "Well it's not like I know whether it is or not, considering I don't even know what's going on."

Jackson curls his fingers into a tense fist and he hides them in the pockets of jacket, "I'm not telling you because if I do, it'll do more harm than good, it'll ruin all the progress you've made--"

"On _what_?" His voice flares, a low red light pulsing in his temper. The waves crash in at the shores as the high tide rolls in. 

"On getting your life back together." Jackson bites and a deep wound settles, a harrowing fear. Reverberations of his faltering expression and the tense of his jaw, speaking in frequencies his instincts tell him to turn away from.

Abstract words and carefully selected scenarios, it tastes a bit too close to home. "Jackson, I swear to god, just tell me what the fuck is going on. Why I've forgotten people I've known, why I have an entire month of my life gone, can you just _tell me_." he jabs at his chest, desperate. 

His friend doesn't answer. He looks blankly at the earth and Jaebum can see the turn of the cogs in his head, the unraveling of thoughts and the weighing of consequences on careful golden scales. Beads of dew trickle from the blades of the leaves above them and onto their shoulders like rain. 

Jackson looks back up, "I'll tell you when the time is right."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isnt late guys, i swear. literally each chapter gets longer each time, each chapter is only meant to be 3k and this thing is like 1.8k more, pls help me. forgive any reckless errors.
> 
> hmu @peachynyoung on twitter im always free to be yelled at.


	6. the one with the truth

There's something magical about the way Jaebum's professor speaks. Really, it's out of this world how this cacophony of sound waves could exist, travelling through air particles in their perfect combination of pitch and frequency, interwoven between raspy intakes of breath. 

Jaebum sits in the back of the lecture hall with all the broken ceiling lights, in the company of crammers and partiers, their soft migraine-fused slumber a downy cocoon of fatigue.

It's been a great week he thinks. Probably on the same frequency as the unconscious guy next to him, that Jaehyung-something who spent his unlimited allowance being achingly hipster and buying strange assets to his 'band'. Black-framed glasses askew, Jaehyung-something snorts and his mouth falls open, a rumbling snore leaking out, and if their professor had half his hearing left, Jaebum would've done kicked his doc martin-clad ass awake.

Jaehyung-something twitches his foot like a dreaming dog and kicks over his bag. Stalks of blue anemones spill out, loose petals rolling out like the curl of a wave, pulsing brightly against the carpet and licking the heels of his shoes. Jaebum blinks, once, twice, and the flowers flicker away.

Delirious, fatigued and apparently dreaming with his eyes open, he rubs furiously at his face. Insomnia claws up his spine, a sore ulcer nestling into his stomach in curls and he inhales deeply, airing his head out. He blinks again, bleary.

He taps blankly at his notebook, blank lines running in parallels across his vision as he begins to zone out again. Inky fatigue presses beneath his eyes and he tries not to doze off to the terrible lullaby of his professor's whale droning. His sleep schedule was still absolute crap and he'd woken up at four that morning, sombre blue tracing his shadow against the wall and a writhing pressure in his chest, growing in strange black vines.

He's not corny enough to call it _heartache_ , it's not like he broke up with Jackson for fuck's sake. But they haven't spoken for days, and that hadn't happened since their last serious fight. They were always too weak, succumbing to reconciliation pizza and ignoring their problems. 

Sighing, he slips his material into his bag and slowly edges out of his seat. No point in staying if he wasn't going to do shit. He slinks out the back door and he leaves without a sound.

Rather than go back up to his apartment to decay in front of the television or stare blankly at the ceiling, he loiters through the streets, hands deep in his pockets and scuffs to his shoes. The campus stands as the hypocenter to a number of uselessly organic health food bars and cafés with superiority complexes that charged generously for the general public, but had found a perfect equilibrium for the card swiping students whom only knew how to punch numbers.

Perhaps with his head in his regular space, he would’ve headed east to where the usual populous concentrated. A weird coffeehouse with the deer heads and side servings the size of thumbs. A vinyl store with dim lighting and purposely scratched woodwork. A book store with no windows and only obscure fiction. Whatever, wherever. 

But today the wind blows west and Jaebum can’t seem to concentrate on anything further than the steps that follow ahead of him. He trails along in parallel to the minimarts and chain retails that line the streets in an obnoxious amount of orange; they spot his eyes, dancing, a glaring sight from the usual lull of clean, grey edges.

Around a corner, tucked in the shade of dusty awnings and by-the-door chalkboards smudged in white, was some homely cafe. Jaebum was almost quick to dismiss the place, too sour, too distracted to pay much attention, but there’s a slant of light that cuts across the window pane, in rich lines of molten gold and before he slips away he catches sight of a familiar figure. Before he can even register the whine of an opening door and the clink of chipped porcelain, he’s already two steps inside.

Dust motes drift, illuminated in the weakening sun and Jinyoung sits in the far corner with his eyes scanning the faces of a novel, cold tea by his elbow and a loose scarf pooled on his lap. The space is muggy and the steamer hisses, drops of condensation trickle from the glass and Jinyoung looks up as he approaches.

"Hey stranger," Jinyoung smiles and fresh air sinks into his lungs, "what brings you to this side of town?"

Jaebum slides into the seat opposite of him and the other sets down his book, chin resting on curiously intertwined fingers, "Thought I was going to pass out in class."

"Are you and Jackson still not talking?" There’s a small arrangement of flowers dotting the windowsill beside him, each blooming to the size of a pebble. They blur against the misty glass, bleeding at the edges.  

"More like not acknowledging each other's existence," he mumbles, wavering, entranced, before he blinks his eyes clear. 

Jinyoung hums, not noticing his brief glassy-eyed look. “I know I’m the last person to be saying this, but I don’t think you should hold onto grudges. You’re friends, it’ll figure out.”

Jaebum lets the words mull into him a little, digging underneath his skin to fester for a while.

A prickle of warmth crawls up his neck and he’s suddenly aware of where he is and who’s in front of him, and all his thoughts die on the back of his tongue because every time he's ever been with Park Jinyoung there had always been a buffer. Saplings to pot, bouquets to arrange, a mile of greenhouse measuring them apart, but now all that sat between them was an empty conversation and a small table. There’s a companionable air around them but it seems to dangle; fragile, a cobweb lingering in the breeze.

But then Jinyoung, glancing up to see his constipated face, breaks into a smile, a real one, he knows, because the crinkles beside his eyes crease into whiskers and the sound of porcelain becomes sharp and clear, like the ringing of ivory keys.

He breaks their gaze and stares at his thumbs, feeling stupid for no reason, startled by no cause. Jinyoung snickers. There's a clinking noise and they both turn to see a boy, high school age from the boyish softness to his face, even with his long legs and broad shoulders. At first, Jaebum does nothing but dismiss him as travels from table to table in long, easy strides, dropping dirty plates and cups carelessly onto his tray.

But then long legs turns around with his stained apron and crumpled white shirt, and he full on sneers at Jinyoung. Before Jaebum can even process the situation, he turns to see the other man staring back at the kid with an equally disapproving crinkle to his nose. Something nasty already sour on his tongue.

"Here again? Looks like you finally have a friend, hyung." long legs says, approaching with his noisy dishes knocking into his arms.

Jinyoung sighs, "Whatever happened to customer courtesy, Yugyeom-ah?"

Maybe it's a little stupid but he feels a small jump in his chest when Jinyoung doesn’t deny him as his friend. Even more stupid, it's followed by a little ache.

“I hardly consider you a customer, hyung.” Yugyeom picks up his drained cup and balances it upon his stack. Jaebum watches their exchange, a little out of place, a little ignored, a little intrigued.

“I hardly consider you my dongsaeng. You're more like an insect underneath my shoe.”

“If I’m a lowly insect, how come you still haven't squashed me? Wow, such incompetency.” With a fluid pivot of his heel, the boy swirls around, his tower of cups threatening to teeter into shards. With a cheery back wave, he walks away, porcelain tapping noisily.  

The smile on Jinyoung's lips is affectionate and bright, and the telltale curves lining his eyes are cute. Really cute. Jaebum has yet to be on the receiving end of one, and he stares at the other instead, wondering what he'd have to do to get a grin like that for him only. To be the only thing on Jinyoung’s mind.

“So,” Jaebum trails, “what were you reading?”

 

 

**2:41 PM**

**To:** jackson

we should talk. pizza tonight?

 

 

Jaebum reads the text over for the fifth time, his thumb hovering above his screen in wary circles. He sighs, and presses send. No time like the present. No better course than the initiative. He leans back against the cool glass and coughs, scratching the skin of his throat.

 

 

 

Wrists deep in soil, Jaebum uncomfortably angles his head to glance at the clock perched on the wall. Soundlessly, the hands tick closer to eight and with the full moon lingering behind the city skyline, he confirms to himself that he is so dead tomorrow.

No doubt his phone, now pleasantly on silent, would be blasting with messages and missed call notifications within the next ten minutes.

Trying his best not to be a grade A asshole in life and in general, Jaebum had never stood up a date unless when necessary, like a few months ago when Youngjae had sprained his ankle tripping over a hammered Jackson sprawled on the floor, waking the whole neighbourhood with his screams of a dead body and ending up with Jaebum having to appease disgruntled authorities with a discreet roll of I’m-so-so-sorry cash.

But this time, it was for his selfish, yet at the bottom of his heart, Jaebum couldn't bring himself to care.

“I still can't believe you're still here,” Jinyoung walks in backwards through the door, a tray of unpotted saplings held in his arms, “I thought you'd have ditched by now.”

“You were the one asked me to help in the first place.”

With well-versed steps, Jinyoung neatly steps around the overcrowded floor of the store-slash-employee room, manoeuvring through the rows of empty pots and bagged fertiliser with his practised dance.

“What I want and what I get are two very different things.” he says, twisting around to slide his tray on the bench.

“Unless you wanted me to stay and help.”

“Ha ha, hyung.”

It felt nice, to be like this. It could be unnerving how easy things seemed to fall into place around Jinyoung, how words came in steady, unhurried beats of a steady song and with every smile and coy twist of the lips, an easing passing breeze smoothing out the ridges. Almost as if they had been woven from the same fabric.

Jaebum wondered if it unsettled Jinyoung too, how he had been slipped into the space between the doors of distaste and friendship. An empty wormhole that he tripped through, finding himself on the other side of the sky.

Throat scratched, he coughs harshly into the crook of his elbow. A vaguely lodged pressure stuck against walls of his throat, tickling and growing into his ribcage like an itchy syrup scraping at his skin. Jinyoung appears next to him like a hovering shadow, his presence startling as he suddenly lays a hand on his shoulder to pull him back, allowing him to frown directly at him, “Maybe you should head home, you're coming down with something.” his brows crease in slight worry.

“I’ll be fine,” he shrugged, trying to nonchalant, “it’ll pass.”

Lips pursed, small quick cogs seemed to rotate inside Jinyoung's head, “Don't expect me to baby you when you’re bedridden and dead to the world.” he offers, falling back into his comforting cushion of plateaued disdain and snark, a well dug groove Jaebum had quickly learnt that he would bury himself into when he didn't how to twist his words richly.

“I wouldn't hold my breath,” he assures.

They stay like that, more or less. Elbows brushing, the warm patch of where Jinyoung’s hand was still sitting at the forefront of his mind, and something settles in the space between them, light and airy, as malleable as the night and the dusty beams from the street lamps outside. The awnings outside rattle in the wind, metal hinges creaking. Curls of subdued colours layer themselves on the shelves, new roses and daisies and asters fresh from the cold room, small beads of water painted into honey.

The traffic outside had begun to loosen, trails of red and white driving past against the trickling rain, dying the blurry windows wet and with headlights. Jinyoung begins to hum again, rounded notes almost unnoticeable against the mull of the slow storm, and Jaebum takes it in his stride. He feels his face flush in pride and pleasure, seeing Jinyoung content with his company.

He coughs again into his elbow and Jinyoung kicks his shin, goading him to go home. Jaebum laughs it off, heart beating brighter.

 

 

 

“Well, aren't you practically glowing?” Youngjae chews on his straw, jabbing a frozen finger into Jaebum's arm, “I wonder what could possibly have happened?” Clouds burst out from his leering grin and he quickly shoves his hand back into his coat pocket, a small shrill running up his spine, both from the frost and the high concentration of sugar in his other hand.

“Isn't it too early for you to be drinking this?” Jaebum shrugs him off and flicks the other's sugary-caramelly-whipped explosion of a drink. Youngjae grips the plastic tighter, whining.

“You're no fun when you're not being senile and crabby.”

Humouring, Jaebum knocks Youngjae aside with his elbow and the younger squawks, cup slipping by the tips of his fingers, catching it in an amazing display of flexibility, inches from the blooming weeds on the edge of the pathway. Jaebum laughs brightly, hand to his mouth until his throat grows dry and cracked and he starts coughing hoarsely.

Youngjae slaps his back, snickering, unaware that he was only making it worse as Jaebum feels like something loose rattling within him with the thumps of his hand. He doesn't brush him off, only breaking into a grimacing smile as he hiccups for breath and swallows up the faint taste of bile.

The city hums behind them, the staccato of footsteps settling into a layer of fine dust in the back of his head, and he leans back onto the stiff red brick of the humanities building. The air is lighter, crisper, and he can feel his teeth sink into it.

  


**11:30 AM**

**From:** mom

There’s a lovely girl from the Nam family who’s visiting Korea whilst on break from her exchange from the States. Her mother is quite keen for you two to meet.

 

**11:32 AM**

**To:** mom

tell them im sorry. dont feel like it.

 

**11:32 AM**

**From:** mom

Is there some girl I should know about? I’m glad, honey.

 

 

Little blinking lights flash red and blue in Jaebum’s head. Maybe he should be a lot more concerned now, now that his mother is assuming the reason he's avoiding pre-marital confrontations is because he’s meeting some mystery girl. He swallows. Naturally, sooner or later, she would be sending that cordial invitation to dinner to someone who never existed.

Sniffing, Jaebum leans his head back against the wall of the same west-side cafe that Jinyoung frequented to, sighing explosively and startling a few salarymen and a dog walker. Snakes of ivy coat the brick behind him in uneven waterfalls of thick foliage, still a burgundy red in colour, and blocking the morning sun from breaking through.

Instead, he’s been passing spare nights like spare change under the flicker of the shop’s fluorescence, idly sorting through shipments of saplings and perusing through seed packets, watching Jinyoung's tapered fingers arranging a new display. Nothing as risqué at the image seemingly painted behind his mother's text.

His hands hover over his phone, about to shoot down her hopes with his most rounded words, when the door beside him swings open and the sharp robust chatter of the cafe snap at his ears. The noises disappear as soon as the door swings shut and Jinyoung's there in front of him, a glint of arrogant amusement like sunlight dripping from the slope of his face.

Everything about him is too much. The casual way he holds himself, a bit pompous and reserved, with one hand in his coat pocket and the other holding bitter tea; the way he cocks his eyebrows with hints of a smirk in his curved, quelling lips. A perpetual secret about to breach on his tongue.

He doesn't know how to feel, how to contain the overwhelmingness. Jinyoung hands him his change, the coins warm from his palm.

“Did you wait long? Yugyeom _accidentally_ got my order wrong twice.”

“It’s his first week as a barista, at least cut him a bit of slack.” Jaebum pushes himself away from the wall and slips his phone into his pocket, message forgotten.

“Trust me, he’s a kid but he's not an idiot.”

Jaebum coughs into his fist, discomfort shifting in his chest.

“You’ve had that cough for a while, for, what, a few weeks?” Jinyoung chews the lid of his cup for a moment before taking a sip, “You should see someone about that.”

“Nah,” he clears his throat roughly, “It’s nothing,” he doesn't want to talk about the lodge in his throat, the awkward choking feeling in his chest that had been building since the start of the month, how it hasn’t subdued in the slightest, “it’ll pass soon.”

 

 

 

There’s something admirable about the way Jinyoung adamantly refuses to let himself be bored. The drawling intonation of the lecture is enough to punch someone cold with the same potency of a horse tranquilizer, yet Jinyoung remains scribbling, careless lines etching away and Jaebum finds himself zoning out, entranced by the soft scratches.

Jinyoung has a tendency to sit in the middle rows closer to the front, so Jaebum knows he’s sort of throwing caution to the wind by visibly dozing within the peripheral of the professor, but Jinyoung has no qualm with giving him a sharp kick to the foot and he has to bite into his lip to keep from squawking.

“Pay attention,” Jinyoung hisses.

The teacher is dead to the world, eyes beginning to glaze over as his mouth moves with a rusty hinge. Jaebum shrugs innocently at him and leans his jaw back into his hand, letting his eyelids fall a good halfway. Looking down, he sees something familiar, peeking from the unzipped gap of Jinyoung's bag are small white clustered pin pricks; Queen Anne's Lace. Weird. Already intriguing enough, Jaebum wondered Jinyoung had such a strong attachment to flowers.

The ache in his chest suddenly begins to flare, throbbing like a fresh bruise and he begins to cough, rough, cracked skin raking down his throat like the scratch of ragged nails. Acrid bile rises to the back of his throat. Something feels wrong. He clasps his hand over his mouth and his muscles tremble with him trying to contain himself.

An almost imperceptible pressure touches his shoulder and he turns to see Jinyoung placing a hand on his shoulder.

“You okay?” he whispers, a panic flickering his eyes up and down his face. Jaebum’s body tenses but he nods dismissively, brushing his hand off before he scorched his skin black from the warmth of his palm. Feverish, pulses of heat flush through his body and pricks of perspiration began to dot his forehead, the back of his neck.

Something crawls into his vision. Small white petals, star-clustered flowers, entwined on the legs of his chair. Burgundy vines, curling across the ceiling, inching down the walls. Clumps of chamomile blooming by his feet, springing from the carpet, uncurling with a moony sigh.

Clammy, winded, like he’d just been pushed into a churning ocean, Jaebum grips his knees, trying to centre himself as loses his sense of up and down. Nausea wraps him like vertigo. He squeezes his eyes shut and blinks them open again, frazzles of colour dotting his sight. The plants are gone.

A hand grips his elbow and suddenly he's tethered.

“I’m gonna go,” he stumbles from his seat, pulling away from Jinyoung’s anxious eyes, ignoring the heavy gazes upon him as he remembers to put one foot in front of the other.

Once the hall doors snap shut behind him, the silence pierces through his skull, a head-splitting tinnitus ringing immovably and he trails down the hallway, guiding himself to the restroom as he fights the flickers of colours drilling into his head.

Inside, he presses his forehead to the cool tile of the walls, urging the heat to seep out. He breathes in, then out, and he remembers the rhythm once more. His heart beats like the kick of a drum and he can hear the rush of blood surging to his ears. Carefully, he stands upright and shuffles over to the sink, wiping his face down with water. Rivulets slip down his neck and arm, dampening the collar of his shirt and easing the erratic hum of his thoughts.

Cold, scratched fingers suddenly sink into his chest, gripping his windpipe until he starts hacking, wheezing, his body trembling from the effort as his lungs give out.

He braces his arms against the counter and he feels something velvety slip past his tongue.

 

 

 

“Dude, I love you and all but I still don't want to talk to you,” Jackson’s voice is miffed as he swings open the door to his apartment, but he pauses as soon as he sees him, eyes giving him a wary once-over, “Wow, you look like you just had a nap in a morgue.”

Jaebum fists his hands into his pockets to keep them still, “Something happened.”

“Clearly.” Jackson, irritation gone, and pulls him in with a warm hand.

The place is roughly the same as the last time Jaebum saw it, old tracksuits hanging on chairs, rings of green tea on the coffee table and a crumb-filled plate or two on the counter. It’s familiar, almost a second home, but he he’s probably going through some semi-out of body experience because he’s unsure of where to sit, to stand, how he’s meant to voice his words without dropping them all at his feet. He stands, simply, unsure of what to do. 

“Sit down,” Jackson gently pushes him down to the couch. Not knowing what to do with them, Jaebum clasps his hands together and wrangles his shaking leg to stop.

Jackson sits beside him, a comfortable distance between them and he leans forward so he that sat within his peripheral. Jaebum exhales, slightly calmer.

“What happened?” Jackson's voice is slightly hoarse, and Jaebum breathes in through his nose, exhaling nervously. It’s just Jackson.

“I threw up,” he starts, lips pressed. Jackson, though a little confused, remains silent, ushering him to continue. He shakes his head, hands moving stiffly to grip his knees, “No, I, uh. Shit, this is going to sound so fucking weird.”

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulls out a petal. It’s as soft as a pillow and a little crumpled, creased at the edges and torn at its delicate tips. "I threw up _this_ ," he waves it around, and Jackson stills, rigid. 

“Was this what you didn't want to tell me?” Jaebum knows Jackson knows. He had hoped at least, that he would burst into laughter, slapping his shoulder and holler with relief at how Jaebum had scared him, thought it was something serious and not that Jaebum was now an avid gardener. But from the crevice-deep frown, so uncharacteristic, he doesn't bother to hope for more.

“Shit.” Jackson glances down, eyes far in the distance, and rubs his face, inhaling.

“Jackson,” he hates the waver in his voice, the reluctance for his words to form, “tell me what's happening.” he balls his hands into a fist in his lap, feeling his bones fracture and snap, embedding into the thin sinews and skin of his palm.

“It’s a really long fucking story, I don't think I’m even the right person to tell you but no one else knows the whole...” Jackson exhales, pooling himself back together, grabbing onto his thoughts before they slipped away, “ordeal.” he waves his hand in the air.      

Jaebum wonders how surreal it must have been for Jackson. To be the only one who knew his friend was a circus sideshow freak.

“I guess, technically, this started with Jinyoung. But it's not his fault, or yours, or, whatever. But, first year you and Jinyoung,” he makes an uneasy face and twists his hand in the air, searching for words, “you weren't exactly swapping smiles. 

There was always this weird ass tension, like one of youse was going to snap and shove the other off a cliff. Bad first impressions I think. You know how Jinyoung is: he gets an idea and he lets it fester. He just didn't like you, and you, you egotistical, masochistic dumb ass, found a reason to develop some infatuation on him. You were like this sad, lovesick puppy. It was so lame.”

The way Jackson says it, it's the least funny thing in the world.

“Wait, what the hell does this have to do with, with this,” he unclenches the fist with the broken petal.

“It’s a chronic thing, maybe. I don't know, it's not like it's a common thing anyway, fuck, no one knows man,” Jackson shifts uncomfortably, “you started coughing at first, I think, like it started out small and you complained about a weird feeling in your chest all the time. Obviously, I thought it wasn't a big deal, not like this, and you would, you know, do what normal people do. Go see a doctor, get a prescription, skip school.

But you were at my place one day and, uh, you puked flowers, petals and shit. You flipped, I flipped, and when your parents found out, they flipped. They sent you abroad to see that doctor of yours, and we waited for a week before we found out what you had. Have.”

Expectant, Jackson looks at Jaebum, waiting for a reaction, an input, the steady fracturing of a breakdown. Jaebum just returns his gaze, waiting. Jackson continues.

“There's no name yet. But it's born out of unrequited love.”

He frowns sharply, “I’m in love?” 

“You’re not meant to be,” Jackson runs a shaky hand through his hair, “Like, you get these growths, these fucking plants, in your chest and it’s fucking weird. It was bad.”

“How bad?”

“Real bad. You were shit, man. You got real low, super down, and it was hard on everyone but it was the worst for you. Sometimes, you’d disappear for days, you didn’t go anyway for days, and uh, you avoided classes and everything.”

Jaebum presses his fingers into his temple, hoping to hear the delicate crush of wicker lines splitting through his skull. Golden irises, sticky red blood leaking from its center, open their maws and bear their teeth in the corner of Jackson’s living room. Tendrils weave between the tables, the chairs, the grey metal of the balcony, curling parasitically around his ankles. He squeezes his eyes shut, and his forest disappears.

“Your temper is pretty crap, but christ, you had these mood swings and I don’t know if it was the growths or your head or if it was both. Everything was just so uncertain. We didn’t know if you could live with your condition, if you were going to die or whatever, or if you had to deal with it forever. Sorry, I’m really butchering this explanation.”

Small pencil strokes scratch out like unfurling branches, twigs, and limbs connecting to a singular, linear, timeline.

“So, what happened? I’m in--I was in love, and Jinyoung wasn’t, so I got sick. Am sick. Whatever. What about my memories?”

“In a nutshell, the only option you had was to get surgery to remove your growth plant things. You flew out of the country and when you came back, everything about Jinyoung was gone. You didn’t recognise him, you hadn’t heard of him, he was a ghost, really. Every memory you had about him was gone. And, well, let’s say your grades took a real dive.” Jackson’s attempted laughter cracks and dies at his throat. 

Jaebum scowls, “There’s no way that could have happened. Don’t you think I would have noticed huge chunks of the year gone?”

“Yeah, you did. But every time you pushed to recall something, you’d relapse and you’d forget everything all over again. I learnt to keep my fat mouth shut, and you moved on. You got your shit together. That’s why I kept you in the dark.”

“If you wanted to keep me in the dark so much, then why did you let me get close to Jinyoung? Why did you push me to him?”

There's something solemn in Jackson's voice, shameful, guilty, “Your disease was gone, you could start anew, I was stupid and I made a mistake. I thought things could be normal, the way things were meant to play out.”

Jaebum frowns, “Jackson, what--”

“ _I_ was the one pushed you to Jinyoung, tried to you know, maybe give you two a second shot," his voice cracks slightly, "He's my friend too, and I miss him, and I thought things could be better. Clearly, _clearly_ this isn't what I thought would have happened.”

“Jackson, that doesn’t make any goddamn sense. There’s no fucking way you’re the reason for any of--,” he shakes his hand aggressively through the air, “of this shit.”

“Well, I feel really fucking responsible now and god, fuck, I try to get closure, and everything's gone to shit.”

Jaebum sighs, a slight, sour smile tugging the corners of his lips, “That’s some fucked up hero complex.” he feels the weight of gravity dragging him down and he feels forlorn, limp. White daisies, like small tufts of snow, burst up from the floorboards like the coming of spring. 

Jackson laughs, full of air, like someone had gutted him and punched out his lungs. Jaebum’s phone vibrates in his pocket, and they jump.

 

 

**11:47 AM**

**From:** jinyoung

class is over where are u? are u ok?

 

 

Jaebum reads it once, twice, before slipping it back into his pocket, message burning into his skin. His fingers shake.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who's still alive.......i'm so, so, so sorry. pls, forgive me for being a little shit. on the plus side i did spend the time not touching this chapter fixing up and refining the plot?? idk lately i've been really unhappy with my writing and exams are finally over so !!! and yeah... /pretends this chapter isn't three months late 
> 
> on another note, i was so s so so nervous writing this chapter bcus i didnt know how yall would react to this being a ""hanahaki"" fic (kudos to the one commenter who figured it out, i applaud you u_u). frankly this my re-imagining of hanahaki, the general trope is rather unexplored and i thought i'd give it a shot trying to push the boundaries of flower vomiting so more things will be revealed!! if your confused (i'm so sorry) feel free to ask x_x
> 
> can you believe my first chapter was 3k and now its up to like 5k oops


	7. the one with the lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd by the lovely and amazing R and zaf!!!! tysm guys <333

Jaebum keeps the flowers in his head alive.  
  
Plumes of light coat the walls of his home with washes of sun and shadows, skimming against his skin in delicate touches that makes his wrists itch. The windows and the balcony door are kept ajar to let the the city trickle in with its distant murmurings. The cool winds lick at his curtains and the dog-eared papers on his desk, teasing the clammy pallor of his skin.  
  
Lovely, dulled asters thrive on the linoleum of the balcony floor and Jaebum watches them from the cocoon of his bed, swaying to the lagging breeze as they beam to the sun. Roots sprout between the cracks in his floorboards, squeezing in between the springs of his mattress and curling inside the corners and gaps that wedge between his lungs as if the sticky sap that oozed from bark had seeped its way into the tissue. Air and sun, to let them respire. Gardening for Dummies.  
  
He'd figured fast enough between all the dizzy spells and daydreams that the plants weren't real. There were no daisies climbing out from his sink, no stalks creasing under streams of water, wrinkled and tethered to stainless steel. The ivy shrouding in Jackson's room melted under his touch and his friend looked smaller in the dark with his wide eyes, usually so mirthful, awry with condolence as the leaves angle to curve around him. And magnolias, as he now knows, thinking back, don't bloom in the city.  
  
“Dude, you asleep?” Jackson appears before him as a holy messenger, his figure blocking all the light so as he stood before Jaebum he auspiciously reminded him of the coming figure of Jesus, back-light tracing a religious image around his shaded face like those youth camp Rockstar Jesus productions. Jaebum blinks up at him with vague bemusement, wondering if it was just a hallucination, before realising that now he couldn't feign sleep anymore if this Jackson was all flesh and not spirit, and plows into his sheets, groaning.  
  
His bed creaks and dips with extra weight, definitely not a religious apparition, and Jackson shakes his shoulder comfortingly, slapping it twice for good measure as some attempt of hypermasculine comfort, before ripping the duvet off him. A confetti of petals flutter to the ground in morbid celebration of him having a super crappy friend.  
  
Jaebum contracts into himself at the influx of cold air, groan reverberating from deep within his chest.  
  
“Jackson...” he growls. Said friend kneels down beside him, a hand coming to rest on his shoulder.  
  
“Stop moping, hyung,” for all misguided intents and purposes, Jackson leans over and grabs the sides of his face as some attempt of hyper-masculine comfort, forcing him to reckon him in the eyes, “you can get through this, you've done it before.”  
  
Jaebum rips his hands away, “I'm not moping. And I can't just stop it.”  
  
Jackson ignores him and re-attaches his hands, “Things will be okay so don't worry. I called your doctor last night -”  
  
“Jackson.”  
  
“And he said that even though this is some anomaly of sorts--well, I mean he doesn't really know, this whole -,” he waves his hand at the petals scattered across the failed honeymoon suite of his room, “isn’t exactly the common cold, but that's fine. We can do it, we can. You’ll be alright.”  
  
“Jackson.” Jaebum levels him down with a look and the corners of Jackson's mouth stitch upwards and his eyes, usually crinkled with his boyish grins, remain fixed and uncertain. Only then did the purple bruises smudged beneath his eyes come into notice and, with a pang of gratitude, Jaebum reaches for his own small smile. He gently punches his friend in the arm in that hyper-masculine attempt of comfort.  
  
“I’ll be fine, Jackson. Stop looking me like I’m on my deathbed.”  
  
The other man whines, “Don't say that,” and he jostles him, small ticks of laughter in his breaths.  
  
Jaebum laughs, nodding in appeasement, but Jackson then turns to frown, suddenly serious, “I haven't told your parents about this. But you should go get the surgery. We really don't know what'll happen if this goes on too long.”  
  
His resolve is strong enough that Jaebum knows he would reduce himself to pleading, and a part of him is more than willing to assure him that he would have a timely death. Wrinkles, grandchildren and no flowers at his funeral timely.  
  
There's the other half though, the more pensive, selfish part of him stopping him from reassuring his friend with promises of taking the first flight tomorrow (damn all responsibilities when you can afford to, right? Jinyoung would get a kick out of that) to see his stuffy personal practitioner. Jaebum gnaws at his bottom lip and looks down at the scatters of white tangled between his fingers. He picks up a petal, chamomile, small and thin in the shape of a tapering raindrop and he runs a finger across it. He feels sleepy.  
  
“If I get the surgery,” Jackson's frown creases, “that means my memories and feelings of Jinyoung disappear, right? And...And I won't remember him, and anything that's happened, and I’ll feel nothing for him forever?”  
  
Forever. Such a definite term, with all its complexities and grandeur molded to fit in that one, small word. It makes things hard to swallow.  
  
There's a wary tone to Jackson's voice, “That was the plan in the first place. I don't know what happened, why things got fucked up,” he brushes the petals off the mattress and they spiral downwards, “obviously you remembered nothing, but you still felt - ," he waves his hand around abstractly, "towards him. I don't know, man.”  
  
He nods slowly, "Okay."  
  
Forget Jinyoung, feel nothing, be cured.  
  
“Let me think about it.” he says, turning away before he could catch the look on Jackson's face.

 

 

Jaebum's chest tickles when he sees Jinyoung. He’s a small fleck in the distance, leaning against a wall and tapping away on his phone, flickering colours dancing on his face of some rhythm game. He's risking his own neck by staring and he's trying not to be noticed for christ's sake. He's just about to get the hell away from Jinyoung's peripheral when that Jaehyung-something and his Kim Wonpil "band"mate-slash-friend slide up to the man, one bleating excitedly and the other standing amused by his side. Jaehyung-something tugs at Jinyoung's sleeve and cackles when his phone vibrates with a game over.  
  
He didn't know they knew each other. Then again, he didn't know a lot of things.  
  
It's been awhile since he'd left him bewildered at his desk. He'd spent the weekend flushing away petals, sweeping them under beds and rugs and letting them roll off the balcony to the streets below, hoping they'd just decompose into air. He hadn't been to classes for two days by the time Jackson had ripped his covers off.  
  
Panic starts through him when Jinyoung turns to move his head and their eyes catch and Jaebum flinches away, retreating. He slips up the staircase and swallows down his pill of guilt as he hurries away, the blurry flicker of hurt pressing into the nape of his neck.  
  
It's pathetic but he waits five minutes after class starts before creeping in through the back door and slipping into the last row as a shadow.  
  
Vaguely, he realises as he sits alone, it's like watching a normal day pass by in slower tempos; it's arbitrary beats adjoining into a familiar symphony, the singular tracks hidden by the interwoven layers of highs and lows and sparking inflections, twisting into something allegorically more. Jinyoung with his thin shoulders and tapering waist, those loose striped shirts with his favoured pen resting in the curve adjacent to his thumb and poised in his fingertips, sitting beside an empty spot. There's the same pattern of wisps in his hair from windy days, probably coming down to sweep his brow. Dainty, yellow flowers blot around the unoccupied space. Jinyoung glances at his vacated seat.  
  
Kim Wonpil, fragile-faced and controlled brown hair, not the kind of man you'd think would approach a Jaehyung-something kind of guy with his neat sweater and reticent way of holding himself, thus fundamentally making him a childhood friend, leans in to whisper inside Jinyoung's ear and they giggle. Like, school girls on the playground giggle. Gross. Jaebum looks away and burns the carpet with his gaze.  
  
Patiently, he watches a field of flowers bloom unnoticed. They follow behind the footsteps of his professor, the blue daisy on his lapel sprouting into two, and he traipses harmlessly over the green with his sleepy voice. At an untamed cadence, they germinate until the entire floor breathes with patches of wildflowers and turf, fusing into the drabby fibers of the carpet and Jaebum can no longer concentrate on the tick of words. The only thing he can hear is the imperceptible rustle of roots spreading beneath his feet.

 

 

When the lesson’s over, Jaebum takes his time and hangs back, leisurely reassembling papers and trying to rerun the whole lecture back through his head. He really should stop blanking out if he wants to have even an ounce of a passing grade.

By the time he stops pretending that his books all had to sit parallel to each other in his bag, the only people left are that snoring Jaehyung-something and his poor friend, looking part miserable and part not as he takes photos of his ugly sleeping face. Jaebum takes the back door again and he almost dies.  
  
Jinyoung's right in front of him, barely moving even when he walks into him and his heart jumpstarts right into his throat. Panic bobs in his chest like a buoy and he takes two steps back, eyes gasping open in the headlights. Incredibly unimpressed, Jinyoung crosses his arm, barring himself like two spears across a shield and a subtle zest of nostalgia drops onto his tongue.  
  
“Jinyoung,” he breathes, his grimace awkward, “hi.”  
  
“Don't _hi_ me. What the hell happened to you?” Jinyoung jabs his finger to his chest and nudges him back an inch, “you disappear from class, looking like you're going through some, oh I don't know, cardiac arrest, and then I don't hear from you for days. I thought you were rotting somewhere with no one giving two shits about your dead ass corpse.”  
  
Jaebum vaguely remembers Jackson's words and he contemplates himself still in that bathroom, beneath the soil, flowers from skin. A bleak image, but he's sure a few shits would be given.  
  
He rubs his nape, not wanting to look Jinyoung in the face and at those goddamn eyes, sharp and slanted, flared open in irritation because sure enough the remorse that’ll follow would probably drag him down. It’s different to all those old malevolent sparks thrown from halfway across the classroom. Jaebum hates being guilt tripped. Browns fractured into pigments, he feels like the dirt beneath shoes when Jinyoung's face grows softer and his lips pull down into something well-intended. He lets his arms fall to his side.  
  
“Are you okay?” he asks, staring right at him, “You looked shit, like you were going to faint or something.”  
  
Jaebum feels the vice within him clench, pressing against his ribcage as the sensation to cough flutters dangerously in his lungs.  
  
“I’m fine,” he lies, “I’m okay now. Don't worry about me.”  
  
He wants to smooth away the concerned creases from his forehead, press something gentler to his lips. It's a stupid thought.  
  
“You sure?” Jinyoung asks, and Jaebum breaks into an uneven smile.  
  
“You're concerned,” he crows instead. Something suspicious flickers across Jinyoung's face but before he can hold his breath, he scowls and shoves his arm, something lighter dancing in his eyes. Jinyoung turns his heel in an arc and walks ahead of him, turning his head to look back after two steps, silently beckoning him to follow.  
  
"You're definitely okay, right? Not going to collapse any minute?"  
  
Jaebum breathes out, "I'm fine, really," they're the same height but his legs are shorter, he notices, with Jinyoung's waist coming up higher than his. They walk side by side, "Thanks though."  
  
"Har har, hyung," the other man sniffs, "I'll fill you in on the material you missed. If you want."  
  
A decline sits on the back of his tongue but, with an abrupt hitch in the synapses that spark from his brain to mouth, he swallows down his apology before it tumbles out. He shouldn't, really, he hadn't needed to wrack his brain to figure that proximity equaled increased chances of Jinyoung becoming a spectator to his floral freak show.  
  
Yet, there's something. A quiet tug amidst the uncertainty, insistent on watching every little shift of muscle and filtering to every conclusion, plausible and implausible; to hope for something more. Maybe it's the soft light or maybe it's the softness in his eyes, but he let's it go.  
  
"Sure."

 

 

As some sort of human failsafe, Jaebum brings Youngjae along with them. Youngjae, bless his gentle, air-headed self, would have his back if he suddenly bolted and ran, no questions asked. At least, that was the original intention. Youngjae, damn him to hell, possessed the supernatural talent of being able to sleep in any environment. That, paired along with his terrible sense in timing, had proved its worth in all the years they'd known each other and had cemented his title of worst-situational-wing-man. Meaning, settled next to him, was his snoring dead weight of a friend.  
  
"Your friend is cute," Jinyoung taps his pen rhythmically on his notebook, ignoring the blue ink flecking on the pristine white. Everything is suffocating and awkward and weird, "It's nice to finally meet him, even if he is..."  
  
Jaebum rubs his nape, "Yeah, sorry. He doesn't usually fall asleep during first meetings."  
  
Jinyoung smiles a little too fondly, a little too cutely, jaw coming to rest in his palm.  
  
It's in that deeply stored and untouched reservoir in him where Jaebum feels a drop of apprehension ripple in his head. He couldn't help but trip himself over by pointing out that yes, it’s been fifteen minutes and Jinyoung already nicer to Youngjae than you. And he called him cute. Jaebum never gets called cute. He chastises himself. Who wouldn't be taken with Youngjae, what the hell.

And, what the fuck, did he just call himself cute.  
  
"Hey, hyung," Jaebum looks up, the look in Jinyoung's eyes shifted into something sharp, and he licks his lips, unsettled, "You were avoiding me earlier."  
  
It's concise and tart and Jaebum realises he'd been lead into a confrontation. "Don't worry about it," he settles with.  
  
Jinyoung sends a glance towards Youngjae before back to him, "Don't just ask me to brush it off. I'm actually worried."  
  
"I know, I'm just saying that it's nothing. Nothing personal."  
  
"Ignoring me is pretty personal."  
  
Jaebum sighs and puts down his pen, finally meeting his eyes, "Not now, okay?" He shoots a furtive glance out the window and fingers of ivy press cracks against the glass. He finds himself falling back a few steps into a memory beneath a lonely tree, "I don't want to talk about it."  
  
"Why am I not surprised?"  
  
He's not the type to plead, and by the overwhelming urge to throw up his lungs, he doesn't want to start. It's plain enough to see the microscopic twitches in Jinyoung's face, the hint of a sneer at some irrelevant weak point with his wit that duels with two edges, both incisive and wounding, charming yet irritating. But it doesn't come.

Jinyoung hunches his shoulders, defensive, and begins to write. Jaebum watches the side of his palm smudge across the paper.

 

 

He's inside an elevator. A familiar one with all its walls a mirror and the ground beneath his shoes thick, glossy glass as thick as a slab of concrete. It's a dream, he realises, watching himself stare into his own eyes infinitely. He reaches out to touch the surface in front of him with a tentative hand and what should be slick coldness sliding beneath his finger feels like nothing underneath his numbed skin. Definitely a dream.  
  
"What's wrong, hyung?" He knows that it's Jinyoung behind him without hesitation. It's that fabricated sense of clairvoyance that dreams are made of, with scenes progressing in self-consciousness, one step forward and two steps more. Dream Jinyoung is just as alluring, if not more with his opaque outlines and cheshire smile - there but not there - leaning against the corner where two points met, leaning against himself, in front of him, behind him, beside him. Jaebum can't hear him, not soundly, but he knows what he's saying; the same cadence, the same lyrics.  
  
"Quite a lot," he wants to say. Little red poppies curve into existence by the sole of his shoes. He can see their fine roots etch through the glass.  
  
Jinyoung smiles a little sadly at him and Jaebum feels belittled. He'd glance away if he wasn't everywhere. Aware of his discontentment, because it's _his_ dream of course, Jinyoung beckons him over to his side and even though he's nothing but the vague outlines that his subconscious can conjure, his false presence itself is enough to make Jaebum heed to his false wishes.  
  
He keeps a sliver of distance so that he wouldn't touch Jinyoung, lest he broke the illusion.  
  
"You don't need to be afraid, you know. Just ask."  
  
"What?" Jaebum blinks and small wallflowers trace along Jinyoung's shoulders, reaching down to lace with his fingers as he looks into his eyes, amused. Rounded, orange petals shed onto his shoulder and tumble to the floor. The poppies stretch knee deep and there's the low groan of weakening glass.  
  
"For someone in love with the real me, you sure are dense. Naturally, it's not uncommon for people to be attracted to others who have qualities they themselves don't possess. But then they usually run away with notions of ego and self-worth," his eyes crinkle, mischievous, "It's alright though, I'm sure the real me will understand."  
  
Jaebum raises an eyebrow, "Did you just insult me?"  
  
Fake-ass Jinyoung rolls his eyes, and Jaebum knows he's laughing in the way he likes - head tilted back, crescents and whiskers, a hand blocking his pearly teeth - and it's crystals and wind chimes and tempered glass. He blinks again and bluebells ring.  
  
"Do you know why you love me?" Jinyoung smiles coquettishly at him.    
  
Jaebum crosses his arms, leaning back, "Loved. And seriously, this is so stupid. You're just a projected image of the real Jinyoung; you're nothing but over-active and unhindered brain activity, so stop trying to speak in circles."  
  
"Ah, so you are capable of logic-based deductions."  
  
"And don't sass me."  
  
Branches slither overhead and shadows play around them like an open day, "Well if this is a lucid dream, why don't you just make me?" It's flirtatious, sickly charm sparking from the bat of his lashes and it pulls Jaebum out of the foggy water.  
  
He groans, palming his forehead, "I'm having a conversation with myself."  
  
"Hey, why do you love me?"  
  
"I'm not," he snaps and hurt - fake, it's fake, he reminds himself - flashes across the face of the wrong Jinyoung.  
  
"Then why are you having this dream?"  
  
The glass gives way with a final groan and the ground shatters beneath his feet.

 

 

Jaebum chokes himself awake. There's something lodged in his throat and he can't breathe. Drops of sweat slide down his temple like cold rain to a fogging window; clammy and cool; nauseating. He lurches over the side of his bed and coughs furiously, his chest heaving with vigorous contractions as silky petals splutter out and fall wetly to the floor. His arms tremble with force to keep his body upright and he stumbles out of his sheets, tripping his way to his bathroom.  
  
He's shivering and his sweat  chills against his neck, his back, his chest as he clutches the toilet bowl and vomits sweet-scented petals and burning bile, sour and foul and tearing through the red raw of his throat. His body jerks with stutters as he hacks clumps of white.  
  
He staggers back, slumping against the wall, and he rasps, clutching for air.

He gets to his feet, light headed, and goes to find his jacket and keys.

 

 

The city at midnight is a stray cat moving on soft-padded paws. Dilating shadows slink around Jaebum's figure and the towers stripe across the sky's pelt, their irises reflecting distant light in hooded alleyways and corners

This side of the neighbourhood was as safe as it got with its absence of lost tourist hunters and nighttime wall scalers. The only wanderers about were the glimpses of whiskers and tail flashing behind a dumpster, but Jaebum flicks his hood above his head anyway, pocketing his watch-clad wrist and he moves with purpose. All he really wants is to breathe.  
  
Night air is coarser, grittier, infused with golden liquor and shitty slick pavements that scratch beneath his shoes. The solitude condenses around his lips like grease and he licks it until his skin is chapped and pale.  
  
He weighs his options. He takes the surgery again and healed scars will re-open, all metal and blood and the rhythmic restitching of flesh. The unrecorded progression of a disease remaining stagnant until the next idiot dumb enough to fall into a lonely kind of love came along. The answer's clear. There's no other path to take a step into.  
  
Yet those promises hold an empty weight. He's not calling it love, the word is too strong and too brash, barreling headfirst into a thicket filled with thorns, but he knows there's something about Jinyoung he doesn't want to let go. He loved him, there's unshakeable proof growing in the gaps of his body, the living mistake of inexperienced hands. And just maybe like the failed attempt to remove the growths from him, remnants of old emotions still remained and now he breathes the consequences into blossoming.  
  
And now he's the fabled protagonist, a traveler at crossroads. A dumbass traveler who glances insatiably curious at the shadowed pathway even with a lovely glen bathed in sunlight standing two steps away from him, beckoning him like a concerned mother's call; the kind to choose to wade through rushing waters and grasping currents beside a steady bridge; the pig stupid enough to think a house made of straw was a great fucking idea, all fire hazards aside.  
  
It's a misplaced feeling. This is an old love he feels in a new body. The way Jinyoung's eyes whisker in the slightest shift of his lips, the fascination that makes his head tilt closer unbeknownst to him, the way his hands move in steady rhythm to his movements like a lovingly crafted instrument; they all appear in afterimages before his eyes with their wheels already grinding into motion before they play.  
  
Which only then makes him question, hoveringly, whether what he felt now could still be as real. Is a half-hacked post-love still worth chasing as something new?  
  
He's two steps in when he catches the fragments of moonlight reflecting on petals. Short licks of fear shape in his stomach and he wills himself to quell the pathetic jump in his heart. Magnolias, curved and snow-white, insistent on existing.  
  
"Hyung?"  
  
"FUCK--" Panic rips from his ribcage. He whips around to see a figure and he's ready to fucking bolt when - familiar, he realises, this figure. Narrow shoulders, narrower waist, silhouette soft and rounded, curious albeit concerned eyes hidden in the backlight. He pieces it together in a haphazard jigsaw, corners coming together in white noise. Jinyoung.

The gavel hammering his chest adjourns and he lets the dramatic hand pressed against his heart slip down. He exhales, head drooping skywards, neck exposed as he barks short, sharp laughter, partly mortified and partly speak-of-the-goddamn-devil.  
  
"Jesus christ," he breathes.  
  
Jinyoung looks at him funny, entertained, "Are you okay?" his voice slices through the dark and Jaebum can roughly make out his face as he approaches.  
  
Jaebum makes a face, "You appear out of nowhere in the middle of the night whilst I'm alone and vulnerable in a deserted street, and you ask me if I'm okay?" He laughs again, a little less hysterical and a little more humorous, "I can't fucking believe you. I thought I was going to die for real."  
  
"Well I'd be honored to be your murderer," The previous day's awkwardness and tension begins to roll back and the silliness of the situation turns stilted, "So. What are you doing here?"  
  
"Walking," he scratches his nose, "Couldn't sleep. What about you?"  
  
"Fell asleep while studying in the shop," Jinyoung shrugs and only then does Jaebum notice the slight listlessness to his posture and the rumple in his hair, "I was meant to lock up anyway."  
  
With nothing worth saying peaking in his throat, he nods, lips pursing in an empathetic gesture and there's the sad churn in his gut when he notes how they're acting like old strangers when not two days ago they exchanged silent, judgmental glances, exasperated as they watched Jackson trying to chew peppers for ten dollars, tears streaming down his face.  
  
It's out of his mouth before he can judge consequences; a proposition:  
  
"Do you wanna go somewhere?"

 

 

"Well, isn't this a sense of déja vu? Minus Mark hyung's meddling, unfortunately." There's an impractical bemusement to Jinyoung's smile, creased eyebrows and crinkled eyes with the dip in his lips that allows his exasperation to sit comfortably as he watches the red-cheeked manager, woken up with a start in the middle of the night, trying to unlock the heavy-set industrial locks of the gates.

The amusement park is threadbare and haunted in the darkness. Skeletal structures painted black loom like a metal canopy in front of them and the instinctual, hypothetical side of Jaebum whom has seen too many horror flicks, both the cheap Hollywood renditions and arcane independent ones, tells him he's leading the two of them into a poorly reviewed film. The barred gates clink and chime with every lick of wind and he calms the illogicality that in five hours or so the sun would hit the blue metal and noisy, bratty children would soon be screaming here. Not quite a horror, subjectively.  
  
The manager finally has the main gates opened and he fumbles a short and rigid bow before entering himself to probably locate the control center. Less skittish and more lethargic, Jaebum and Jinyoung trail behind him with at a content pace. Jinyoung, swathed in his overcoat and bundled in cottony layers, cheeks blushed pink by the cut winds and his ears frigid scarlet, breathes out.  
  
"I sure hope this isn't a habit of yours, renting out entire facilities with the dial of your phone," he teeters on the edge of his heels, not bothering to contain his enthusiasm as they wordlessly establish a middle ground, Jinyoung having forgone his passive aggressive resentment at the offer of travelling to the outermost edge of the city. The slight strain is still evident though, without their usual lustre of casual jabs and sarcasm.  
  
"What can I say, I have a heavy name," Jaebum shrugs, "And also my father partially funded the construction of this place. You can find his name engraved somewhere on some plaque at some place." he snorts twirling his hand in the air in dismissal.  
  
Colours flash alight to their immediate right and they turn to see an ornate carousel grind into light and music and the smooth bobbing canter of the wooden horses. In flickers, the landscape sparks into breathing with the underground whine of rolling gears and tinny, tinkering melodies kindling to the swallowed silence, beckoning them further into depths as the world around them blinks with attenuated stars, iridescent and golden.  
  
"Manager guy says that even if it's me, no thrill rides allowed. So, if you were going to push me off the roller coaster, you're going to have to wait another day."  
  
"Hilarious, but I'm not dumb enough to murder you with a witness and no alibi."  
  
"And I care about you too."  
  
Jinyoung comes to a stop, eyes focusing on a distance, and he points to something printed against the sky, "I can still push you off the ferris wheel, though."    
  
"Don't you need someone to man that?"  
  
"Well, good thing we have our witness then."

 

 

 _What's going to happen now?_ The question dangles in the stark coldness and Jaebum sort of just hopes it'll crystallise and condense in the space between them so he doesn't have to actually muster up the courage to ask. He's not like Jackson, he can't conjure up the tenacity to just say it; he's not like Youngjae, he doesn't have that natural meekness that elicits weird maternal instincts at the doleful glance of two wide eyes.  
  
Jinyoung's words breaks through the wind like glass, "You know, you're not as bad as I thought."  
  
It had occurred to Jaebum that Jinyoung, like him, didn't like looking things dead in the eye. But now, with his eyes trained onto the starlit horizon with his white knuckles, only now does he realise that he was the one who had learnt to adapt and grow, imperceptibly and with a silent confidence.  
  
"Care to be less vague?"  
  
The winds are stronger nearly fifty metres up in the sky and when Jinyoung turns to face him, the winds play lovingly at his skin, his fringe tickling the curve of his eyelids and the lights beneath them reach out to caress the gentle slopes of his face to paint a warm glow, subdued and softening, to the canvas of his smile. Jaebum wants to kiss him.  
  
"I'm only saying this once and only because I'm too tired to care anymore," he closes his eyes briefly, resting, "I was wrong about you. I'm not saying I'm not still kind of annoyed, but whatever, I can wait. I just - I guess if you don't want to tell me something, then I guess there's must be a reason why."    
  
Momentarily stunned, Jaebum closes his parted mouth to keep his swelling heart from cracking through his ribcage. Sheepish, he laughs and a shyness seeps into every crevice, from his fingers to his lungs and he feels the petals within him shiver, delighted at the sweet nectar that pools in his stomach.  
  
"Thanks," he murmurs and then, louder, "I guess you're more than that stuffy scholarship student persona I thought you were."  
  
Jinyoung's laugh is carried off by the breeze and it's like Jaebum's swallowed a sugar cube.  
  
"Can I ask you something?" he murmurs.  
  
"Go for it."  
  
"How did we meet?"  
  
Jinyoung looks at him in surprise. A beat passes between them. "Sure," he says and Jaebum can sense the discomfort swelling in his mouth as he pauses to think, "I don't know where to begin though, I could hurt your feelings."  
  
"Don't worry, I'm a big boy now,"  
  
Jinyoung chuckles and looks down, "Alright, if you promise not to sulk."  
  
"That's more your thing, I'm afraid."  
  
"Ah, shut up. Okay, well. I guess - ," he breathes in, eyes drifting back to the glittering cityscape for comfort, "I'd heard of you before I met you. You're a big shot name obviously, and as one the most regular, normal people on campus, I had my presumptions. It's nothing personal. It's just - the reality is, I don't have anything to fall back on. I don't have name or class or money to cushion me if I fuck up.  
  
I can't really describe the, I guess, _culture shock_ of when I first transitioned. Sure, I expected the obnoxious hummers double parked and the cashmere socks or whatever, but you don't really see things until they're in front of you. And slowly, it makes you sick."  
  
Jaebum's pride nudges at his gut, defensive. He keeps listening.  
  
"So there's you. Among the top of the hierarchical food chain with your family name engraved in at least half the city," Jinyoung blinks pointedly at the attraction they're on and Jaebum is humble enough to blush, "And I hated you. Because if even the common student was an ostentatious dickhead, then you must’ve be the alpha dick." They both pause, looking at each other for a heartbeat, before Jaebum snorts and they both begin to giggle.  
  
"We met through Jackson," Jinyoung calms down, smiling to himself, "I didn't think great of him either because I always saw him next to you and he had a fencing scholarship even though he's probably the last person in all of China to need freebies, so yeah, I guess he caught on.  
  
You know how he is, everyone has to love him, so he followed me around for a few weeks trying to invite me to penthouse parties or whatever you people do. He figured that wasn't my thing soon enough though, so instead he’d just have lunch with me. Which is him sitting five feet away and trying to chat ten decibels too high while I ignored him,"  
  
The jealousy that bubbles is sticky and viscous and the residue it leaves behind causes Jaebum's fingers to rub and peel against each other as he processes, for the first time, a genuine envy for Jackson: corporeal and substantial and outgunning every resentment he'd ever had the guilt of feeling. Jinyoung doesn't notice his unease, distracted with the clouds glossing over the moon.  
  
"What can I say? I grew attached. I let him in. My opinion didn't change of you, though. But Jackson doesn't know how to not be meddling and I could chokehold you until your brain cells died and he'd still try to make us buddy-buddy while you were in a vegetative state."  
  
"That really kindles my heart, that image,"  
  
"I'm sure it does. So, yeah, we'd cross paths a lot and, in all honesty, you were rude as hell and weird as fuck."  
  
Jaebum grimaces.  
  
"We argued a lot, over everything, usually because of me now that i think back. I felt looked down upon and you infuriated me so much, seeing things handed down to you and you wouldn't bat a single eyelash. And you know what pissed me off the most? You never made fun of how I was poorer or that I didn't own a car or how I have a part-time job -,"  
  
"Jinyoung - ,"  
  
" _I wanted you to_ . You made it personal and sometimes you had a point. You hit things spot on and it was like you already could see through me,” he smiles drily, “As if I was ever going to let you know, though."  
  
"Well, past me is ecstatic." Jinyoung chuckles a little and he looks at Jaebum as if he was watching through a pane of glass.  
  
"You used to come by the shop towards the end of the year. I don't know why, I thought maybe you were taking it to the next step by harassing me or something. You never asked for me though, you just loitered around for a minute and - ," Jinyoung breathes a fuzzy little laugh, "I remember trying to glare at you from behind Mark until you spat out whatever you needed to say because you had this, I don't know, pained look on your face. I still have no idea what the hell you wanted. And I guess we both never will, huh?"  
  
Jaebum, anchoring and exhausted as he felt the whole night finally catching up to him, had an inkling.  
  
They take the first morning train home. Jinyoung rests his heavy head on his shoulders, his breaths soft and slow in slumber, the grey-gold sunrise smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes and the bruises beneath his eyes and Jaebum fights to stay awake, warmth seeping into his heart.

 

 

The greenhouse is dead still. Arranged in precise rows are scrubbed clean and empty pots. Thick criss-crosses of roots and shoots and arching foliage break across the cement and glass panes like the intricate jungle of veins and arteries. Jaebum doesn't process that it's another dream until Jinyoung's sitting in front of him across a small, rounded table with his hands clasped into a cusp as he smiles tenderly at him.  
  
It's a fever dream and he wakes up in his bed, tasting bile and pollen rise in the back of his throat.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> started from 3k now we here with 6k,,, what am i doing...
> 
> omg ao3 is always messing w formatting im weeping


	8. the one with bad timing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u to my lovely and amazing betas R and zaf!!! ily u guys <33

It's a grim realisation for Jaebum when he considers that now, with his almost too-frequent morning retching, he'd have to wake up earlier to compensate for the odd five minutes or so he spends clutching porcelain and staring into his reflection, wondering what the hell he was doing as he brushes the aftertaste of nectar and bile from his mouth.

This whole situation, it's like staring a wolf down he thinks. It's a less than ideal confrontation with bristling teeth but he's too foolish to flee, metaphorically rooted to the spot in his cowardice. The metaphorical red riding hood in a macabre romantic comedy. Hilarious.

The train commute is short and jammed with bodies brimming upon bodies like a huddle in the arctic, even more so with the coarse wool scarves and faux fur that keeps rubbing near his face and tickling beneath his nose. The sentimental spring weather was still refusing to divorce from winter and a chill still hung in the air.

The carriage lurches to a stop and Jaebum sways with it, his grip on a support pole tightening, feeling his nausea return.

He's going to be late for class, a fact he keeps reaffirming by glancing at his watch, eyes ticking to the hands with no other purpose than to keep the edging anxiety licking and snapping at his heels. The doors slide open beside him and people squeeze out then in, a breeze of ice swarming in as the faint odours of everything provoked his sensitive stomach. The citric punch of orange and sugar, the ashy taste of smoke, the thickness of musty fabrics and moth balls, whirling into a hard to digest stench that makes him woozy. The door closes, and he keeps moving.

He misses Jinyoung, in a stupid, senseless way. Sure, he'd last seen him yesterday, perched on his chair like a child prince, relaxed and regal in his slouch as he drilled him in on all the fine details of film history that he'd been consistently ignoring for the past weeks or so. He'd tap his pen, indigo blue and prone to smudging, something he's used for months, against his paper as Jaebum would sweat nervously before him as he tried to prattle something believable; it never worked.

"If you're going to be running a corporation that owns half this city and probably a few province-sized islands, don't you think you should at least manage to achieve higher education?" He had teased, flicking his pen across his knuckles and he'd flinched back with an ouch. It seems the closer Jaebum gets to him, the more unapologetic he becomes.

"Uhm, yeah," he had gawped, and then, collecting himself, pointed out that owning islands is such a _tacky_ investment. A coastal villa is enough, really, and a lot cheaper to maintain. Jinyoung had laughed, a sweet sound that made his cheeks warm and his teeth ache.

The carriage breaks to a stop, his platform coming to view, and he shuffles out as far from the crowd as he can, taking the stairs two at a time, the cement blurring beneath his feet. The route to campus is short but it feels a mile to every stride as if someone had slipped the earth beneath his feet for a treadmill and all he was walking in was his footsteps.

 

 

 

"You were late again, Im-ssi," Jinyoung crows, his fingers pressed against his lips and his chin balanced in his palm as he muses, unimpressed. The black frames perched on his nose skew at the corners when he scrunches his nose and his mouth tightens into a smile, dark eyes squeezed into crescents.

His shirt is tucked into his jeans and his flannel is flimsy, slightly threadbare and crumpled, and he looks a little nerdy when he pushes his frames further up his nose. It's kind of cute in a dorky way, but the apron slipped around his neck hugs his waist tightly and it's always at the shop where Jinyoung looks the mellowest, the softest.

The shop wasn't the most ideal place Jaebum had in mind to work on their assignment but Jinyoung had insisted, saying that he'd rather be surrounded by mouldy sprouts than mouldy students, and Jaebum hadn't bothered pointing out that, well, you know your employees area is just the storeroom, right?

"It's not like I'm a serial offender," His half written essay plan is crawling with more doodles and pen scratchings than actual essay, the corners beginning to stain with dirt and what suspiciously seems like pink pesticide stains. He brushes away a leaf clipping, irritated.

"But it's more and more now and you're even MIA during breaks. What's going on? You're not pregnant, are you?" Jinyoung stops drawing over Jaebum's now-marred folder to look up, brows pulled together into a convincing frown.

"What the fuck, _no_. I didn't get knocked up."

Jinyoung snorts, resharpenin into his comfortable snark, "You're right, how absurd of me, there's a stick in the way."

Jaebum frowns, "Huh?"

Raising a brow, Jinyoung looks at him pointedly, waiting for him to catch up with that infuriating calm of his. Out of all the people in this world, Jaebum had to choose the least demure guy in the city and worst of all, it makes his heart flutter when he knows that he doesn't even mind in the least.

There's a charm in the way that he can tug and tilt his strings to make him dance with just the right tilt of a gaze or the briefest pout of lips, all the whilst unknowing of his manipulation, or maybe it's just Jaebum's own ideal-inflicted romanticism. Jinyoung may be fickle but Jaebum's always been flexible.

 _Inspiring_ , Jackson would say, _someone finally pulling the stick--_

And realisation dawns. He clicks his tongue and grins wickedly and Jinyoung's eyes widen innocently.

He erupts in laughter, "You--," he lunges to grab his nape, an instinctual reflex adopted for smart-mouthed Youngjae, and squeezes his scruff hard. Jinyoung yelps, jumping, and twists and wriggles in his grip, trying to duck away and slapping blindly at his arm. Unyielding, Jaebum grins and tugs him down and the younger follows too readily, feather-weighted and unprepared, and his flailing wrist cuffs his nose. Hard.

"Ow, shit!" He drops him and cups his nose. Jinyoung careens away, red-faced and cackling. It throbs so much and wow his bones hurt like a goddamn bitch. He scowls, holding his face in both his palms and the younger bats his hand away to inspect himself, giggling, his fingers prodding gently against the hard bridge of his nose.

"It's fine, stop being a baby." Jinyoung concludes with a simper, pinching the numbing skin for good measure and Jaebum pushes it away, chasing the blood away from his cheeks with a noncommittal grunt. He feels even more flustered when Jinyoung just rolls his eyes, looking down as he rubs the tingling sensation away from where his fingers had lingered.

"Oh, hey," Jinyoung suddenly leans over and, to his immense panic, reaches for his thighs, "Look at this," and he plucks, so innocently, a thin white petal from a crease in his jeans.

"Chamomile," he says, holding it up between his pointer and thumb. Jaebum feels his stomach lurch. It unnerves him from his roots, a sickly broth of anxiety and white pills stewing in his gut. "Funny," Jinyoung muses, "We don't even have these in stock. You're not frolicking around with other florists, are you?"

Jaebum forces a smile, "Oh no, I would never dare."

 

 

 

Waking up earlier isn't a quote Jaebum's made to keep so yeah, it's true he's making a habit of rocking up at least twenty minutes late and scaring Jinyoung a feet into the air every time he sneaks into his seat, so much so that at some point Jinyoung's stops being startled and just grumbles and nudges his elbow with his own, briefing him on whatever points he'd missed. He can tell that he has a lot more to say on his tardiness but for some reason he doesn't hear anything about it and instead he's just being watched with an untranslatable expression, glancing away when he shifts.

It's a cool afternoon and the crescents of sunlight that filters through the trees bare a weak resemblance to real warmth. Youngjae's leaning against the trunk and Jinyoung's telling some story and the former nods along, half-listening as he balances a sandwich in his mouth and a pen moving in his hand, moving in a practiced flurry. 

Jaebum's wedged between the two of them and Jinyoung's half-hidden form has to lean forward to see Youngjae, just to check that yes his story is still relevant, before returning to plucking out the grass around him and littering their corpses around their thighs as he stitches his conversation and chases his tangents, recounting how he saw their film professor purchase a box set of racy harlequin novels the other day. He starts giggling between his words, his breaths getting a little raspy and even Youngjae stops his work to choke when he describes the premise of the stories, erotica and romance and all.

"And, when he came to the counter--," Jinyoung pauses to wheeze and slaps a fist full of grass on Jaebum's thighs, "he saw my face and, and shit--"

He teeters forward until his head comes to rest on his shoulders, his hair tickling the underside of his jaw and the mellow vibrations of his laugh trembling into his own chest. Jaebum smiles down at him, stiff with nerves and fluttering. His thighs are gripped into a vice as Jinyoung tries to calm himself down, grinning giddily into his palm with the force of sunlight as he hiccups with laughter. He can't really bring himself to mind the dirt patch now in his jeans.

"He," a small breath, "He saw that yes, I had just spent the last half hour watching him peruse and decide between the--" he gasps, his whole weight coming to press against him and the weak afternoon sun slants across the bridge of his nose and curl around his flushed cheeks, " _Jesus Christ_." he turns his head and his nose bumps into Jaebum's arm and the small touch makes his breath wobble.

A flourish of orange poppies pop up from the bumps of uprooted dirt. Their colours throb, the curves of their petals milky.

"Jinyoung-ah," Jaebum winces as soon as he feels fingers dig into his flesh and the poppies turn blurry. He carefully pries his hand off, "That hurts."

"Sorry, hyung," his smile is sheepish, crudely innocent as he sits back up and cards a hand through his wispy fringe. A piece of grass traps itself in his hair and Jaebum moves to brush it off with his knuckles. Jinyoung's eyes widen for fraction and Jaebum falters, quickly redrawing and suddenly acute of the non-existent distance they shared. Suddenly silent, Jinyoung recomposes himself. The flowers, now crawling to rest on their laps, bleed into a deep, lusty red and Jaebum hammers his heart shut.

That was new. Sure, Jinyoung's fondness of latching onto others had only recently extended to include him, and sure, he'd constructed a rather unattached attitude, but he didn't think that Jinyoung's physical inability to not keep his hands to himself was a one-way street. God, why did he do this to himself. It's not even like he's socially inexperienced, he has plenty of friends, he can read social cues.

Jinyoung's just too confusing, that's it, everything about him is too complex, too baffling, like those thousand piece puzzles that were nothing but flecks of maroon and blue, edges and ends refusing to fit, swimming in his vision until left incomplete and tucked beneath a closet.

A small snicker floats into his ear and he turns to frown at Youngjae, batting lightly at his head as the younger grinned shrewdly into his crusts. "Jinyoung hyung, I didn't know you also worked in a bookstore. Hyung only told me about the flower shop." he says.

"Yeah, only for a couple of days a week, though," Jinyoung responds, as if their small moment hadn't happened, "It doesn't pay as much as Mark's dad," he shrugs, the fabric of his jacket brushing up to his ears, "The rent at my place's increased so I'm thinking of taking more shifts."

"Wah, worrying about rent. That's so..."

"Normal?" Jinyoung throws into the air and Youngjae smiles bashfully. Jinyoung coos and reaches over to pinch his cheek.

"You can always room with me, hyung! I'm so lonely in my apartment and Jaebum hyung never visits me anymore because he's always hanging out with you," he glares up at said hyung, nostrils flaring dramatically, "So if you stay over then he has no choice but to appreciate the best dongsaeng he's ever going to have."

"Hey, I'm spending time with you right now."

"Sorry, Youngjae-yah, but my lease doesn't expire until next year. Maybe when I get evicted."

"Okay!" wow, chipper much, "Promise not to go to Jaebum hyung first."

"Now why would I do that?"

"Hey, hey, this is a form of bullying--," a sharp buzz interrupts them and they all freeze. Jaebum digs into his pocket for his phone and sighs when he sees the caller ID, "It's my mom. Give me a sec."

Jinyoung sits back as he stands up, brushing the flecks of dirt and grass from his jeans and he wanders just out of earshot, behind the tree, and presses the blinking green accept.

"A good son remembers to keep in touch with his poor, loving mother," he hears, the static made of sparkling champagne and toasted brunch.

"Hi, mom," he greets.

"I'm glad you're finally getting out more, though I do miss planning those little dates. But honey, do know that your father and I weren't only setting them up to have something to chat about at dinners."

Jaebum nods, then, remembering she couldn't see him, made a stilted grunt of acknowledgment. He feels a well of guilt begin to open, knowing why she went through all the effort in the first place.

"We really - _I_ really - want to see you settling down soon. Once you take your father's place, there won't be much time for anything else," she exhales, "I mean, I well enough figured you aren't seeing some girl. I checked your credit card history and you've done nothing except buy some supermarket fertiliser. I wasn't aware you liked gardening, you should have mentioned it, I have some gorgeous catalogs from this year's season for you to peruse through, though I'm certain you could order better supplies than those retail brands."

"Mom, Is there a specific reason why you called, or?"

"Oh, sorry. I just, miss you quite a lot, dear. Your father and I haven't seen you for a few months. Though, knowing your father a few months are like a few weeks with his pace of work," her laughter dies off into a sigh and fractures fission in Jaebum's chest at just how silver, how _old_ , she sounded, "Anyway, there's going to be a little gala in a month or so, so if you're bringing a date please tell me beforehand. Make sure to wear the suit Auntie Jiyoo picked and please take off those earrings, they clash with the gold cufflinks."

A party? He sighs.

"I'm probably not going to bring anyone, or go, really," he shuffles the toe of his shoes against the ground and uproots a loose weed, passing through imaginary poppies, and ruining the sheen of his sneakers, "I don't really have my eye on anyone."

"Don't really? You either are or you aren't."

"Good bye, mom," He singsongs, and he smiles when he hears her laughter, chimes and silver spoons on crockery, tinny through the receptor.

"Now, honey--"

"I love you, mom, but I really do need to go." He glances behind him and he sees Jinyoung's shoulder poking out from behind the trunk, a loose leaf balancing in the folds of his sleeve.

"Love you too, sweetie," he hears a smile and then, a lonely dial tone. He stares at the blank of his screen, a twinge guilt tugging his heart down into his stomach. He pockets his phone and turns, walking back when he catches something, coming to a stop. The careful, controlled hush of a whisper.

"Youngjae-yah," Jinyoung sounds nervous, "is there something wrong with Jaebum hyung?"

There's a pause, then the sound of a pen being put down, "What do you mean? He is kind of weird, isn't he?" Youngjae laughs.

A small chuckle, "No, I meant as in, is there a reason why he's disappearing so often? He's always late now and sometimes I don't see him at all," a breath, a pause, "Is he...okay?"

"What do you mean?" Youngjae's voice is muffled by his sandwich, probably a dimple of crumbs beside his lips and he can picture Jinyoung wiping it away with a thumb.

"Has he told you if there's anything wrong at all? Like, I don't know, stress, sickn-,"

He doesn't want to hear this. Something vile is panicking in his chest, pummeling at his breath and he moves forward, one step, two steps. The poppies by his ankles tremble with dynamite reds and oranges. The grass beneath his footsteps crack and gristle and Jinyoung turns when he hears him, a flash of guilt on his face before it folds it away into curiosity.

"What was that?"

"Something about something," he shrugs. "Hey, listen, I've got something I need to do so catch you two later?" he turns and leaves without catching their goodbyes.

He heads straight into the building adjacent and takes the stairs two steps a time until he reaches a vacated corridor. A mist of disinfectant and diluted bleach settle like stains in the the linoleum, the lights overhead flicker and hum, watching, as he pushes himself into the restroom. The hinges whine like disjointed elbows. He dry heaves into the first stall until the ache he feels in his body flutters out.

 

 

 

There's definitely something fishy about the fever Jaebum catches. When he blinks himself awake, feeling as if sand had poured down his throat and ten inch nails were being hammered into his cranium, he cracks to himself a small joke to as he struggles to sit up. Jungle fever, he laughs. And then he groans, flopping back into his mattress, kicking out his legs and throwing his covers over his head, irritated and woozy.

Small daisy petals intermingle with a rounder, yellow kind at his pillow-side, trapped between the folds of his bedding. His sleep has been shallow and tumultuous, drifting on the edge of wake as he startles himself in the middle of the night with his chest heaving and choking.

Too weary to care, he flicks the annoying things away, their perfume spoiled with the tang of the bile that seems to sit at the back his throat now like an aftertaste.

It's stupid early in the morning. The shadows that form are shapeless and faint, raking goosebumps up the scorch of his shivering skin - it's unpleasant, it's suffocating, it's stumbling into an overgrowth where with scratched eyes and roots clinging to his heels that leave his knees red and dirt crusted.

His hands and feet are ice cold and he almost feels steam when he presses his palms to his forehead, feeling the sticky perspiration coat his fingers in the balminess. He can't breathe through his nose and his whole head is stuffed with cotton, its silvery fibres tickling his throat as he rubs his eyes, exhausted and feeling like he'd been dipped upside down.

He fumbles underneath his pillow until he feels his phone, drawing it out and texting Jackson.

 

 

 **6:27 AM**  
To: jackson  
sick with fever. send help.

 

 **6:27 AM**  
To: jackson  
dont call 119 i meant medicine

 

 

After he closes the screen, he lets it slip from his fingers as he closes his eyes.

 

 

 

Jinyoung's crying in front of him. His hands are dove-soft and his tears taste like rosewater. He knows he can't touch him but he reaches out nevertheless, his fingers ghosting over where he would feel rough cotton and smooth skin, where he would press to study a weak pulse.

 _What's wrong?_ he wants to ask, but he stays tight-lipped, watching from both by his side and from afar in that curious duality that dreams liked to play, the spaces stuck between them embroidered with his anxieties. In his own dreamy insight, he already knows.

 

 

 

There's a knocking at his door. The sound ruffles him awake and he blinks, confused, before the soupy memories of him sort of waking up to text Jackson rush back to him. He groans and the knocking starts to taper off, and he wonders why Jackson doesn't just come in for Christ's sake, he has the spare keys.

Top-heavy, he pushes himself up and wraps his blanket around his shoulders, a shiver wracking his body before he began his bare-footed padding to the front door with a hundred and one annoyances whispering beneath his breath. Jackson definitely lost his keys again. Goddammit Jackson.

There's a sort of shuffling outside: shoes scuffing impatiently and the rustle of plastic bags bouncing against thighs. He sighs and swings the door open, the sharp click of his lock, and his annoyances die right on his tongue when he sees it's Jinyoung who squawks and drops his bag, shocked, as he almost trips a step back.

"You're not Jackson." he whispers, hands still braced at the door side.

Jinyoung huffs and picks back up the fallen item, "I'm flattered you noticed. You look like shit, by the way."

Jaebum doesn't bother hiding his flush; his face is bright enough, "What are you doing here?" he tugs his blanket over his shoulders tighter.

"Jackson told Youngjae who told me that you were dying but not to call 119, because he has very very important fencing practice, and Youngjae has a very very important assignment he forgot to do that's due in--," he checks his watch, an old, wrinkled-leather thing, "fifteen hours. So, naturally, I'm your third choice since you don't have a very broad circle of friends, apparently."

"I have plenty of friends," he mumbles, "just most of them I wouldn't trust ten feet of anything resembling a pill and my health."

"Of course," Jinyoung nods, dismissing, before he waves the bag in his hand in front of his face. Whatever's inside jostles loudly against the material, "well I bought these in the pharmacy down the road and not from someone's car in an alleyway, so I think you're safe."

He's about to stand aside to let him in when he remembers -- his bed, his floor, his bathroom -- he hasn't swept anything away since he stopped caring and letting things get out of control, accepting the frequency of his episodes. The apartment is a fucking mess and Jinyoung is two steps away from walking into the hollowed husk of a bomb shell.

"No," he bites too quickly, "It's fine. I just needed medicine, you don't need to come in."

The look on Jinyoung's face is unimpressed, two ticks away from rolling his eyes, "Let me in, hyung,"

"No--," Jaebum moves to block the entryway but Jinyoung is deceptively faster than he looks and he ducks under his arm, grinning, and Jaebum whirls around, startled and dropping his blanket to the floor, a noise being strangled out of his throat, "Jinyoung!"

"Wow, you really live here?" the other man is toeing off his shoes, plastic swinging in his fingers as he takes in his disgusting, completely trashed, post-fuck-my-life, mid I'm-a-college-student- "Jesus, I would kill to have a place like this."

Jaebum almost trips over his sheets, "Huh?" he blinks.

Jinyoung laughs at him, his eyes crinkling like paper, before turning back around to gaze out his wall-length windows, "You have the entire city outside, and then some. What is this place? Your graduation gift or something?"

For some reason Jaebum grows flustered. Small pin pricks running down his skin in an odd smattering of shame and modesty, his neck warming up, and he can't look him in the eye, "Uh, no, it's just a place. Just a, yeah." He kicks a pile of tattered magazines, _Sports Weeklys_ : courtesy of a certain someone, underneath his couch and he hopes Jinyoung doesn't notice the hamper of laundry in the corner, a concoction of his clothes and not-his-clothes left to stew. He picks up his sheets.

Accustoming himself, Jinyoung places the bag on the kitchen counter and pulls out a few boxes before turning to rummage through his drawers and bang his cutlery around, "I always pictured you living in some penthouse with like, an olympic sized swimming pool and a miniature garden or something. But this is just your regular high-lux apartment with a balcony and all. Completely unlike you, Im Jaebum." He flicks the electric kettle on and it lights up, a smooth rumble building up to fill his grey apartment in a low, warm purr.

Fidgety, Jaebum wills himself to calm down enough to perch on a bar stool. His body feels weighted and he hugs the soft down of the fabric in his arms to his chest, head lolling down and staring up at the other man as he proceeded to open every cabinet, perusing through unopened cereal boxes, emergency Youngjae ramyun and assorted leftover china that his mom brought over to forget about, fragile millimeters of crockery only loved once, opal-white and gilded with ornately carved handles, which only now does Jaebum realise look really out of place next to the jar of half-finished organic peanut butter and greasy organic cooking oil.

Jinyoung hums in satisfaction when he finds a mug, snorting when he sees the two-inch long crack running down its body. Everything makes Jaebum nervous, from Jinyoung's apparent skill with knowing how to navigate a kitchen, more knowledgeable than Jaebum's fridge-and-microwave combination, to how too comfortable the nature of this abrupt interaction is.

"I don't see the point of living in a penthouse," he rolls a few words around his tongue, trying to complete a sentence, "It's big enough here and besides, I'm lonely enough," he attempts to laugh but it ends up sounding like a breathy, sputtered cough.

Jinyoung pushes up the sleeves of his grey sweatshirt and the loose folds on his shoulders bag downwards, making him effortlessly smaller in his too-large home, behind his too-large counter, "Then just get a cat," he shrugs, as if cats were the solution to everything. He swipes up a box opens it, pulling out a thermometer, "I trust you know how to use this?"

Jaebum stares down at it. He's seen them before. He's used one when he was little and he's seen them on television and they goes in the mouth, right? Sweat beads on his forehead.

Jinyoung presses back a smile and his lips curl out of sight. "Never been sick a day in your life, rich boy?" he jokes, snickering, a bit too happy at his incompetence, "Stick the tip under your tongue and close your mouth. If you want it up your ass, you're going to have to ask someone else, sorry."

Jaebum chokes and obliterates the image as soon as it appears, a hand to his face. He grins.

"After that, take one of these," Jinyoung slides over another box, a smiling cartoon tablet glaring toothily up at him, before he leans in and brings a cold finger up to tap at his forehead and Jaebum's breath stutters, "You have a headache, right?"

He glances away, the pain in his chest constricting tightly with its sudden heart-aching vice and he glares back at the stupid drawing, ignoring the glimpse of collarbone he sees slipping out from the dip of Jinyoung's shirt.

He pops the thermometer into his mouth with too much force and there's a bump of pain on the tender flesh. He resists the urge to swirl the metal around and he holds it still, savouring it like an ice cube.

He watches Jinyoung as he pours a mug part way with boiling water and part way with normal, pearly curls of steam pooling around his face as the swollen grey sky outside slipped into its gold-blue coat, wrapping the fabric around its belly with a belt of wispy clouds and the first of the morning light began to part its way through the crevices of his curtains, lining the smooth inclines of Jinyoung's cheek and neck.

And then, as if he was waiting, he sees it. The discernible curl of blossoms, arching along the curves of his sink.

"You have to leave. Now." he pulls the thermometer out of his mouth - 38.4 degrees - and manages to catch the flash of hurt in Jinyoung's face right before it hardens.

"Yah, why are you being like this? I'm just helping you out." he bristles.

He bites his lip, "I just. It's -" He rubs furiously at his face, tense and flushed and feeling as if rain was thumpering down onto his skin into a numbing hum, "I'm sorry. Just, you have to go."

Jinyoung's jaw tenses. His fingers are still curled around his mug and they tap irritatingly against the ceramic, his blunt nails clicking against the crack, and Jaebum is sure that he's finally done it. He's finally unraveled the knot he'd tried to tie around the two of them and he sort of knew, was afraid since the start, that whatever friendship he'd managed to procure from his disease was nothing but unsalvageable parts he'd forced to work. Forget his feelings, they were messy and hard to look at from the beginning.

He expects the other to lash out, waits for the empty slam of his front door, but there's nothing but a heavy silence sinking down on them and the slow growth of flowers entangling themselves between the tines of his silver forks and the bars of his drying rack, a dry rustling like skittering birds feet. More nervous than ever with a familiar churn rolling in his gut, and he glances up. To his confusion, Jinyoung is looking down at him with his bottom lip trapped beneath his teeth, gnawing anxiously as he trained his eyes on his counter.

"Jinyoung?" it slips out. The man looks up, sighing.

"Hyung, if I asked for the truth, you'll give it to me, right?" and before he can reply, "Are you...okay? I mean, is there something wrong?"

Jaebum swallows, lips parting slightly as he tries to find his words, only to come up with nothing. He reaches for a box and takes out a pill, popping it from its foil but not moving to swallow it, "What do you mean?" he's nauseous, light-headed, his throat tickling.

The other sighs, "There's something off about you now. Does this have something to do with...before? How you lost your memories?" Memories of me.

"I think you should go," Jaebum stands and dry swallows the pill, feeling its small body scratch down his throat, as he turns his back to walk away. "Thanks for coming."

"Jaebum!" Jinyoung's voice is worried, anxious, bordering on a plea and it hits him like a truck, rips him from his feet like the slam of inertia, that Jinyoung cares about him.

His stomach lurches.

As soon as the sweet and sour taste rises into his throat, he's already slamming the bathroom door behind him and heaving into porcelain. It hurts, it aches, he feels it in the contractions of his breath, in the corners of his joints, the small woven fibers that interlink him together. He needs to stop fooling himself, stop pretending that things were manageable, that he could live with this fucking thing infesting him from the inside out.

His chest trembles and his fingers hurt.

His breath is laboured when he pulls himself to sit up and lean back against the wall, feeling as if he'd crawled out of an earthquake. The hairs on his neck stand up and he's shivering despite the burning heat that's radiating from him. A sharp pain tears at his chest and he chokes, coughing out a flutter of petals. He doesn't know this species, he thinks groggily, wiping the tears blurring at his eyes.

There's a rapid knocking behind him, tearing him from his spiel, and Jinyoung's voice comes out, muffled.

"Hyung? Hyung, are you alright? I'm coming in--,"

"Wait!--,"

The door swings open. Jinyoung's eyes widen and there is the softest intake of breath, "Hyung." And Jaebum watches him, terrified. Watcheshis eyes trace the room like a crime scene, darkening with questions when he sees the flower pieces littered on the floor and in his lap. The hand resting on the door handle tightens to grip the brass.

"Is this some sort of joke?"

Taken aback, Jaebum cowers at the intensity, "Jinyoung, what are you saying?"

"This is sick prank, isn't it? Are these from the shop, are you fucking with me!?"

"Jinyoung, stop it's not a trick--," He coughs. His frame shakes as he feels something try to dislodge from his throat and he coughs with his whole body, humiliation burning red hot across his face and he hates, he _hates_ the cheery yellow and white that drops out from between his lips, wet and limp against the blue of his tiles.

He hates the soft breath he hears, he hates the tears that prick like needles into his eyes, he hates himself for being so fucking weak.

He doesn't realise he's gripping his head until he feels a pair of hands, dove-soft and scented hand soap, pry his own away, leaving a dull throb in his scalp.

Carefully, he feels himself being pulled up and he wobbles to his feet.

 

Jaebum tells Jinyoung everything. He's exhausted in his sheets with his back turned to the other, who sits on the other end of his too-large bed facing the lonely bare wall. His voice is hoarse and he explains as best as he can everything that Jackson had told him. He wonders what goes through Jinyoung's head as he talks, what expression plays against his face or whether there is any expression at all; he wonders if there is the pale coat of sadness lacquered across his eyes.

He recites like a broken poem of their first encounters, things Jinyoung already knows but he says them anyway for himself maybe, and when he reaches the part where he admits he was in love, it's a cold and alien confession, disjointed from himself as if it were some other man. It's true, though. He doesn't know this other Jaebum, this old shell of him that sneered at Jinyoung when he walked by him in hallways and classrooms, but whose heart would contract when he saw his retreating back.

Jinyoung doesn't say a thing as he listens. If it wasn't for the dip of his weight on the mattress, anchoring him to his reality, Jaebum would think he wasn't even there at all. He just sits there, listening to him explain his ailment, explain his feelings, explain that it's okay to talk to Jackson because he misses you too, and he links every missing thread they'd both been holding in their fists together into one complete rope, looping it around until it formed a perfect circle.

The only thing Jaebum leaves out, to save one small pebble of his pride, is that he is still so, incredibly, irrevocably infatuated with him. He knows Jinyoung's smart enough to figure that out.

If Jinyoung had any questions, he doesn't voice them, and when he's finished, all Jaebum does is stare out across his balcony and across to the grey, steely skyline that barred the pale rosy morning, like rust in a rosebush. Finally, he feels the weight on his mattress shift and he knows that Jinyoung will leave. But, just before the door clicks behind him, he feels the unsound touch of a hand hovering above his shoulder.

"I," he hears, and his voice is low and strained, "I need to think about this."

And he's gone.

 

 

 

Jinyoung's crying in front of him. His hands are coarse and scratched and his tears are as bitter as medicine. Jaebum doesn't move to touch him; he's far away and watching out of the corner of his eye.

"Everything is wrong," someone says. He's not sure who.

 

 

 

Quietly, Jaebum opens his eyes to an empty hum. The sky outside is the colour of bruises, grey masses collecting along the horizon and the evening is perched on the last of its lip. He feels better, his head clearer as if window had been opened and his fever had almost sweated itself out, but his throat is still a crackling dry. He kicks his covers off and sits himself up, forcing himself to stand with his puppet strings and he opens his door, pushing back the memories of Jinyoung's hands on the same place, and walks to his kitchen.

The thermometers still there. He tries it - 37.7 - before swallowing another pill with the now-cold water.

The temperature outside had dropped a few degrees and even though there's still a dull throb in his head, he shoves on a pullover and steps out onto his balcony to greet the night winds. Their caress is soothing, like a cool mint to his skin and the flickers of light that blink at him from the city feel reassuringly homely.

He fishes out his phone and pulls out a contact never really used, and he puts the device to his ear, blood thumping.

" _Hello? Kwon residency_." comes a sleepy accented English, crackling on the other line with bad reception. Jaebum clears his throat and responds in their mother tongue.

"It's me, Jaebum."

"Ah, Jaebum-ssi. This is unexpected," there's a chuckle, a little awkward, a little light-hearted, "How are your parents?"

"They're good, they're great. Dad's overworking again. He hasn't changed since he last saw you," he licks his lips, unsure how to continue.

"Why the call, though? People usually don't call their doctors for light conversation."

He tries a small laugh but it sounds like strangled choke to him, "Yeah. You're right, something did come up. The, uh, the flowers are back."

A small buzzing silence, his worries cresting and falling and then, "So you know," he hears, and there's a sigh, a little sad almost, and Jaebum thinks back to when he was made of twigs and branches and bright patterned shorts and how he'd sit still when Dr. Kwon, a decade and then some younger, would thread in the neatest stitches across his flesh, ruffle his hair and slip a sweet into his small hands. "Well, it was unlikely to stay secret forever, despite your parents' wishes."

"Please don't tell them. I want this, I need this, to go quietly. I just want it gone." The traffic below flows in an unsteady stream below him, like red and yellow ants following a honey trail. A slow breeze teases his hair across his forehead.

"Well, I'm your family doctor and you're a legal adult, whatever I reveal to your parents is up to you solely."

"Thank you," he rubs his eyes, "I'll call tomorrow with more details. I'm sorry for waking you so early."

"I'm no stranger to being woken at strange times, Jaebum-ssi. But before you hang up, forgive my rudeness but, who is it this time?"

He cracks a watery smile, feeling faint as he traced the taxis below, "Same one," he admits.

"Ah, I see. Well, have a good evening, Jaebum-ssi." and he hangs up.

Jaebum lets the tone ring in his ears for a few more seconds, feeling slightly alleviated with the confession, before he begins dialing a new number. He starts to pace as he waits to picked up, painfully aware that he was still barefoot with frost that was digging into the soft of his heel.

A _click_ , "Hello? Mom?"

There's a soft rustling and then a surprised but delighted, "Jaebum!" and he smiles to himself, a small happiness budding in his heart.

He stops to lean forward at a corner, closing his eyes as the wind whistled in his ear and stroked his cheek, snaking around his waist in a cold embrace.

"Yeah, hey, mom. Listen, about that gala thing? I think I will go."

A small breath, "Oh, that's wonderful, honey. I'm so glad, and it'll be brilliant. You'll have so much fun."

"I hope so too," he hums.

"I'll add you to the list right away. And don't forget what I said about those cufflinks and your piercings. Are you bring a plus one?"

Jaebum mulls a little and he taps the glass of his balcony barrier along to a soundless song. "Sure," he decides, "yeah. I will. But, can you just let me invite them? Your invitations are great and all but they're a little..."

"I get it, I get it, my son doesn't want to scare away his date with my gaudy envelopes," she chuckles, fond and warm like soft blankets and bakery, "I'm glad you're coming, sweetie. It's just not the same without all of us together. It's almost dinner time now, I hope you've eaten something."

"Yeah, I did," he lies, "I need to go now. Bye, mom."

"Goodbye, Jaebum." she bids quietly, and he hangs up.

The lonely tone still rings in his ear, even as he crawls back into his sheets.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if the next chapter is 8k long you guys have permission to flip my house


	9. the one with decision making

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd ;'^(

"Jinyoungie? Is that you?"

Jinyoung closes the door with a click and a sigh, his attempt at sneaking in now pointless. His mouth feels glued shut, even to Mark. Still he feels the sting of Jaebum's confession, a grate against his raw skin, unfleshed and dulled with sandpaper as he’s still picking at the conversation in fragments. He'd walked home, the long trek passing in seconds as he finds himself too soon at his door step.

"Are you okay?" Mark's voice is reassuring in that smooth low tone he has and at this point he’s just too sensitive to every dip in mood, sensing it in the air like a thermometer, and he appears out from the kitchen and into the cramped hallway. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and his hands are covered in a soapy froth, fingers pruny from the dishes as he trails water on their floor.

Jinyoung shakes his head, nonchalant as can be, "Everything’s fine." he says and he stretches the corner of his lips, feeling the smile pull against his cheek tight as plastic and he hears the croaky hitch in his voice. Humiliating, he wants to disappear. He pushes himself off the door and brushes past, bumping his shoulder against Mark's in a silent plea for him to not follow.

His room, a labyrinth, usually with four walls closing in and a cluttered makeshift library of paperbacks threatening to topple, become vague and distant as an empty room. An expanse, the inbetween of a breath, a shallow divot in where his feet try to find footing and he feels a slip of weightlessness as if he'd missed the last step on a staircase. He stumbles into his mattress. The plush squeak of springs break his fall.

There's a faint crack in the ceiling, like the faint pencil scratch of shaking hands.

Jaebum is in love with him.

This stupid idiot.

He could scream. Kick the walls. Stamp his foot like a child and twist his arms at how complicated and unfair everything is, at how he kept treading through sinking sands, always fooling himself into thinking he could breathe without air. He runs a hand over his face, rubs his eyes with the heels of his palms and cards though his fringe, feeling as if he was floating through a very, very bad dream, intoxicated with medicine.

The anxiety simmers in his stomach until the sky trips itself into darkness and he closes his eyes against the cool fabric of his pillow, his situation slowly coming to reality like a diffusing pill.

 

 

On the other side of his door, Jinyoung can hear soft noises. The small clink of chipped mugs setting down and droplets of too-sweet coffee forming on the counter-top with spilt grains of sugar, the distinct tap of a fork against old porcelain plates, stainless metal cloudy with steam as drips of oil roll down their tines.

Mark is awake, and louder than his habitual dormouse behaviour.

Jinyoung's been standing in front his door for a solid ten minutes with his teeth tasting like peppermint and his stupid hair adamantly wispy, his fingers curled around the door handle and feeling frigidly clammy, somehow terrified of going outside and walking down that corridor to the smell of cheap eggs and cheap coffee because even though Mark's been in Korea for years, he grips tightly onto his familiar, American breakfast like a tourist lost in the alleyways of his map.

Mark's a good friend. His closest friend, who knows when to not comment when he's being unreasonable and brings an umbrella when he's being a raincloud on someone’s - usually his - parade. He knows when he walks out that door that Mark isn't going to say anything about his behaviour and he won't act like anything is different until he sits down in front of him at their scratched lacquered table and waits, ever so patiently, as he sips the mud in his mug.

He swings his door open. Mark raises an eyebrow.

And that, the simplicity, is what makes him swipe a piece of toast and bolt out the door, right heel half wedged into a sneaker and his windcheater flapping angrily from between his armpit as he calls out a breathless, "Bye, hyung!" before he slams the door too hard.

 

 

The city in Spring is a portside, beating against the sea banks in sleepy lulls and bleak in colour with the criss-cross of cars in the morning rush, tethered to the cement and rocking idly, waves of fog between crevices that cling to the brick like mollusks. Sparks of colour; the flash of a fire hydrant, the scratched blue of a car, the tattered calico of a cat perched on a windowsill, eyes narrowed at the scales of green-purple pigeon feathers  swinging on wires overhead. The drizzle that hits his cheeks feel like ocean spray.

The plant life has been dormant since Winter had crawled over and only the toughest weeds persisted in the pavement. As much as Jinyoung would take red noses and ears over the sweltering bleach of the sun, it's terrible for business with all the flower farms in their vicinity offering only greenhouse grown saplings and those, by the cart full, are pricey.

Jinyoung unlocks the shop and heads in, welcomed by the tinkle of brass and the perfume that clings to the woodwork like homey friends, an instant comfort. There’s a tug in his chest. He makes his way to the backroom and up the creaky stairs.

The sharp click of the greenhouse door mutes the traffic outside into a mumble and Jinyoung shakes the raindrops from his hair and pulls his windcheater off, resting the material on a bench.

The saplings still hadn't bloomed. Not a peep of petals beginning to uncurl despite all those weeks he'd tended, watched, and tapped his foot aggressively until Jaebum laughed at him and stepped on his muddy sneakers with his own and told him to calm down. Jinyoung would tell him to shut up, Jaebum would laugh again. A part of him boils in directionless anger and for what, to whom, he doesn't even know. Just the frustrated ember beating in his ribcage as he, bite by bite, tries to finish his burnt toast. It leaves his mouth dry.

Jaebum loves him. Jaebum is in love with him at this very moment, perhaps sandwiched in his sheets, listening to the _tic tic tic_ of rain, maybe standing in his large kitchen with his fingers sticky with butter and honey; maybe in thought, in hunger, in both.

The raindrops are soft on dusty glass. There's a buzz in his pocket.

 

 **From:** mark

**6:56AM**

u cant just skip breakfast like that jinyoungie

ill buy u somethinf but ill be late

 

A smile creeps onto his lips.

 

 **To:** mark

**6:56AM**

thanks hyung

 

To almost everyone he meets, Mark's silence is discomforting. To him, it's a buffer of quiet where he can think and be heard. Boring, he knows. But he's got kinder eyes and sharper laughs, alarming when pink and gold in the flush of cheap bars, the unusual slope of his nose a pique of interest that jars the contours of his grin. The kind that people don't want to forgot.  

But Mark’s never left him to decay alone on Friday nights, him slipping into his squeaky mattress whilst he's reading, ready to spend the night with videos of dogs chewing through tennis balls or those ones of people just eating - Jinyoung doesn’t question - nose wrinkled in concentration. It's subtle, and he appreciates subtle.

"Jinyoung!!"

His phone hits the concrete. "Son of a--" He swipes it up and exhales when he sees nothing but dirt specks. He clutches it to his chest, feeling his heartbeat against a few hundred dollars and the fresh scent of his savings untouched. Too fucking close.

"Jinyoung...?" The voice is muffled and he barely hears it, his name whipped around along with its speaker behind the glass walls in the wash of wind and rain. He rises from his crouch and rushes to the door, squinting at the blur of red fidgeting outside before pulling it open.

Jackson. In the world's most obnoxiously red hoodie and a cap on the verge of flying off his head, splatters of rain on his shoulders and shoes and Jinyoung stares openly before he regains his senses, sidestepping to allow him in.

"Jackson," he closes the door, "What are you doing here? Did something --,"

"I know you know." Jackson blurts, words coming as if he'd been holding them in, "Jaebum told me. This morning."

A beat passes.

"Are you okay?" Like a leaf, Jackson wilts and softens. He sounds concerned. "I mean, it's a lot to take in and all, and it's all so sudden, so..."

"Yeah, no, it’s okay. I'm not the one to be fussed over," he waves his hand, "Just, let me - I mean - some time would be nice."

"Time. We can do that." Jackson nods, shrugs, his shoulders reaching his ears as he tries to smile.

Jinyoung picks up a pair of shears, puts it down, “So,” he starts, “what brings you here? I mean, other than telling me...that.” if he could, he would bite a lemon to shut his stupid, stupid mouth.

Like a tomato, Jackson’s neck splotches to match his clothes, “Well, I also want to explain - to _apologise_ \- for why I, you know, became this little bitch and started pretending -- ”

“Jackson, it’s okay,” He puts his hand up, “Don’t apologise. Jaebum hyung already told me and I get it, he’s a friend and he’s important.” Comforting, perhaps, to the both of them, when they smile at one another.

Yeah, Jinyoung can still make that out, what he has with Jaebum is important. That much, he’s sure of.

Jackson plays with his hands. Callused palms and strong fingers intertwining and locking, clammy with jitters and Jinyoung already knows what’s to come out his scrape of his teeth, “If,” he begins slowly, “if you want to, maybe we can catch up? Lunch or something? Old time’s sake?”

The smile that lifts his lips makes the storm outside a shade bearable. “Yeah. Yeah I’d like that.”

And Jackson’s grin lights up the greenhouse like a stagelight, a beam of gold piercing through the rafters.

 

 

“ _Please_ don’t ever take up gardening as a hobby,” Jinyoung clutches a clay pot to his chest, a barenaked sapling shivering, lopsided and ravaged to single leaf left. He places it down tenderly, careful not to jostle it to death, and Jackson places his murder weapon down onto the bench. Around it, the fallen limbs of healthy, supple leaves.

“I’m just a little rusty,” he reasons and wipes his soil covered fingers down his borrowed apron, a  smattered baby blue pattern that makes him look like the most ripped twelve year old on the planet.

Jinyoung smiles as if he was hearing how he saw a fairy at the playground today, “And when was the last time you tried to take care of a plant?”

Jackson pauses, lips quirking to the side, “five minutes ago.”

“Tragic,” he hums and Jackson giggles with that familiar squirm that wriggles through his whole body, a worm plucked from the earth, laugh boisterous. A quirk Jinyoung didn’t know he missed until he saw it again, a hop and skip in his chest.

“How is Jaebum?” Jinyoung says and wipes his fringe out of his eyes with his arm. Cool, calm, casual.

Jackson pauses, legitimately thinking this time, and scratches the corner of his mouth. There’s a smudge of dirt by his lips. “I checked up on him this morning. Was asleep like a rock.”

He nods. Jaebum, bone-tired and blue-skinned, covers pulled to his chin and eyelids paper thin, exactly how he’d seen him the day before. That all seemed so long ago.

“And then he woke up, vomited, and went back to bed.” Jackson wrinkles his face.

“Does he still have a fever?”

“It’s better now, I think. I don’t know. He didn’t talk much,” He places a hand on Jinyoung’s shoulder and heavy, anchoring him from wandering to his thoughts, “Listen, Jinyoung. Don’t start thinking it’s your fault and all that guilty bullshit. I’ll kick your ass if you do.”

He’s knows that. But, still. “What am I supposed to think? That it’s got nothing to do with me?”

“Jinyoung.”

“Just cause I didn’t do it,” he mutters, “doesn’t mean I didn’t do _anything_.”

The sigh that follows grates along his nerves, “Jaebum hyung has no one to blame. You can’t stop those kind of things. Like, feelings and shit.”

Feelings and shit. Eloquent. Still, a warmth creeps up his neck and Jinyoung places his hands on the workbench, suddenly fascinated by the splinters that stuck out from the grain and just how it easy it would be to get one caught under his skin. He’d never really read into Jaebum’s actions. He’d seen none of this feelings and shit coming.

Their history is weird, albeit a little too dramatic for his tastes, that whole enemies to frenemies to friends - if he can even call it that - and he just _was_. Was that awkward friend who stared a bit too long before talking, as if mentally weighing words around on the back of his tongue before talking, had that dinosaur teeth smile and a laugh like the blast of a furnace: a rush of heat, a rush of sound, all encompassing.

He’s not really sure how to feel about it, now.

“Jinyoungie, let’s get food--,” The door swings open and a windblown Mark stops in his steps, eyes flicking to Jackson, “Coffee guy?”

Jackson’s grin drops, bruised, Jinyoung laughs a little, and Mark makes a pained face.

 

 

 _Talk to him. When you’re ready of course, I mean. Like, no pressure._ That’s what Jackson had said over the rim of his mug, coffee stains dabbing at the corner of his mouth and grains of brown sugar stuck to his lip. Jackson had always been a bit of a messy eater. Mark sits like a gargoyle by Jinyoung’s side, flakes of a croissant floating onto his thighs.

 _He’s sick, but that doesn’t mean he wants a pity f--pity relationship. Like, respect yourself too, man._ Jackson means well - when does he never? - but there’s only so much he can talk to Jaebum about, dancing around their situation before he carefully unclips the last heartstring and lets that final weight drop to the ground. He thinks it’ll sound like rock, finite and dull, sediments lost in hairline cracks. It's the little things people can't find.

Pity. It’s such a dirty word. Something to spit onto the cement.

Of course he pities Jaebum. He’s not going to deny the itch in his chest when he thinks about him, and he’s only been thinking about him for nearly every waking moment since he’d seen that little drip of white from his mouth.

If he doesn’t repeat the words to himself, that _Jaebum is in love with you, that he loves you so much he grows flowers in his lungs and in his stomach and in the linings of his whole body_ , he thinks he’ll just slip from this fever dream to the cool rush of morning in a world where the only things he pulls his teeth out for is money, homework, and the prospect of something better over the horizon.

What’s there to love about someone with thinning skin?

 

 

He knocks on Jaebum’s door, smooth oak hard against his knuckles. He’d love to punch himself for showing up with no game plan but even Jaebum would find it strange to open his door to a friend (friend?) with a broken nose and blood sticky on his chin.

There’s no answer.

He knocks again, louder, hoping that Jaebum is just heavy sleeper and not the kind to hermit himself from sunlight. Nothing still.

Curious and untrusting, he puts one ear to the door and strains as hard as he can.

There’s only a stretch of silence but he knows better than that. Jaebum wouldn’t go out anywhere, not with his current condition especially. If there’s one thing Jinyoung’s better at than giving the cold shoulder, it’s getting mad at being on the receiving end of one. Ironic and tragic, he knows.

He raps against the door again, wholeheartedly showing his adamance and thinning virtue, making sure Jaebum’s hermit ass knew he meant business lugging his ass all the way downtown to be glared at suspiciously by the lady at the desk, her red fingernail tapping menacingly against swirls of a marble countertop as he made his way to the elevator.

“Yah! Im Jaebum, I know you’re in there.”

 _Now_ there’s a shuffle of sound.

“I can hear you!” he knocks again.

“I know you can hear me!”

Jinyoung jumps. It sounds as if Jaebum had stuffed cotton down his throat, pillowy with a deepening hoarseness.

When the door cracks open Jinyoung finds himself holding his breath, and the way Jaebum peers from the sliver at him, eyebrows pulled taut, the thin of his lips pursed in apprehension and his jaw tensed, makes him want to drop his swords and shields to flee.

“Hey,” Jaebum mumbles, unwilling to open the door further.

“Hey,” Jinyoung says, an idiot.

“What are you doing here?”

Big breath, inhale. “I think we should talk. About us.”

“No,” it’s harsh, ruder than what Jaebum was aiming for and he resorts to a mumble, “You don’t need to worry about this. You don’t have to deal with me.”

Jinyoung almost sneers, “You can’t really decide that on your own.”

Jaebum frowns, “Are you _trying_ to get involved?”

Really. This guy. A complete rock for his stupid head. “I’m _already_ involved, numbskull. I’m a part of this as much as you.”

A trickle of water runs down the side of Jaebum’s cheek and for a moment Jinyoung panics into thinking that he’s sweating, that his fever still hadn’t broke and he was being a little bitch for yelling at a sick guy. Only then he notices his damp fringe, flopping across his forehead and the limp towel around his neck, the somewhat hurried way his shirt sits on his shoulders, does he realise what a big dumbass he must look. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment.

“Can I come in?” He sighs.

Jaebum looks at him, an ounce of sympathy, and steps to the side.

It’s as if nothing had changed when Jinyoung enters. Same couch, same walls, same chairs, the windows and balcony still open to the city and the wind, the cool lap of grey against his skin like a bird calling. He can almost believe nothing had happened if he was cruel enough. Jaebum sits himself atop of an armrest of his couch and looks up at him.

“Well, you’re here,” it’s not unfriendly, but it sounds like it might be, “we can talk.”

Jinyoung pinches his own palms and looks into his eyes, surprised to find them open and dark like a cut facet reflecting back at him. Things don’t have to be difficult. Jinyoung huffs and moves to sit beside him, scooching him over and perching on the edge of the armrest so that half his butt hangs off awkwardly and he had to knock his shoulders against Jaebum’s broadness.

Jaebum laughs a little, snickers at his attempt for a comforting intimacy. Jinyoung has to swallow hard to not get lost in the peaks of his mouth.

“Jaebum hyung, I don’t love you like that.”

And he waits for it. The sound of a falling stone, a thick crack, the scatter of pebbles, a dent in the hardwood beneath his feet.

“I already know that, Jinyoung-ah,” Jaebum’s staring at his lap, “If you did it wouldn’t be like this. Duh.”

He knocks their shoulders together, maybe rolling his eyes, his sorry chuckle tapers off with a little sigh.

Jinyoung licks his lip, swings his feet a little, “I’m sorry.” He feels like a little kid at the swing set with his feet barely touching the ground, waiting for a push.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You know that.”

He shrugs, “It just seems like the only thing to say. I can’t fix anything. I can’t trick myself into...that.”

“That’s okay,” Jaebum knocks their knees together, “that’s okay.” he says again. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

“I’m really, _really_ sorry.”

Salt wounds sting the back of his eyes and Jinyoung rubs his eyes furiously, scratching them pink and feeling his ears prickle at the stream of bubbles that threaten to burst from his throat and he swallows and swallows, pops them with the grind of his molars. He has no right to cry.

An arm comes to wrap around him and he gets tugged down, closer to a warmth and a sturdy solidness and Jaebum pats his arm like he’s a child, sniffling from knees chafed chalky white and a pride he learns that can sting.

Jaebum doesn’t speak, only pats to a slow beat on his arm and he stares ahead, lost in his thought. Jinyoung can feel how tense he is, how much he wants to push him away with the tentative pressure of his fingers, how much he wants him to stay with the linger of warmth against his skin. He knows he’s hurting him being here, being vulnerable and idiotic and sitting together with no air to breathe. But he doesn’t move from their blanket of silence, tears drying on the brim of his eyelids, refusing them to fall, and stares at his knees, at Jaebum’s knees.

“Can I...say stuff?” Painfully shy, Jaebum has become nothing but a boy.

“Sure. What’s your _stuff_?”

He worries his lip and smiles a milky smile, “You’re…important to me.”

Jinyoung snorts, not unkindly, “Hyung, if I didn't know that we wouldn't be here.”

Jaebum bats away his tone with a palm, “I’m just trying to say that, whatever happens, whatever I choose to do, don't blame yourself. And I won’t ever ask you to do more than you can.”   

“I know. I know you won't.”

Jaebum drops his hand away and wedges it between his thighs. _Whatever I choose to do._ What did that mean?

“Jinyoung,” Jaebum cuts, “This is kinda off topic but you know, there’s this party thing in a couple of weeks that my mom’s holding and I thought that, if you want, maybe you could tag along?”

For reasons indiscernible, Jinyoung flushes, partly pleased and mostly terrified. A party. Not a pointless bar stool or frat house joints where Jinyoung slides on jeans that he hasn’t washed in two weeks and a shirt that’s beginning to fray, to stand two hours in the shadows with something a little too gritty and a little too dry. This one was going to be him standing against a wall, maybe gilded maybe beiged, and more than likely hiding behind a giant potted plant and hoping a giant pompous chandelier would crash onto him.

He’d love to say no, he’s not going to suffocate himself in a tie for more than a good half hour and try to pass off that he doesn’t own a bus pass, but Jaebum’s looking at him with a little niche hope, the sharp slopes of his cheeks softening into a quirky almost-smile. It’s only a little thing, he sighs to himself, he can do one little thing.

“Sure,” and then a moment later, “Do I need to wear a tux?” He doesn't own anything more fancy than casual button downs and maybe a moulding pair of slacks in a damp corner of the rainforest.

Jaebum snorts, “Sure, if you wanna mingle with the senile. Of course, it’ll make more sense for you to wear a suit.”

Well. His wallet might as well be a piece of cardboard, picked from right off the street corner. What more could he have expected? Mark’s spent his earnings on a fucking sweater, he doesn’t have any friends (full stop) who wear the same size, and his bank account is telling him to fuck off.  

Jaebum pats his elbow, “Don’t worry, you won’t be paying.”

“What are you, my sponsor?” he brushes him off, “I’ll just ask for a raise, take more shifts, it’s fine.”

“I’m not going to make you fork over a few hundred dollars for _my_ party.”

“It’s not your party, it’s your _mom’s_.” he pinches, feeling miffed he has to lean back on money again.

But there’s no point turning his nose away from cash dangling in front of his face when he needs it. Snd besides, “I’ll pay you back, I swear. Eventually. Maybe in 10,000 won segments. Every fortnight. Next year.”

His body jostles with Jaebum’s laugh, he claps his back like a barking seal cheering for treats, and it’s rich and warm as the afternoon that filters through the windows.

 

 

As unfortunate as it is, Jinyoung does go to school and as compelling as it is to be immersed in passive learning and eating like he wants heart disease, school meant the occasional end of year exams. As ritual, Jinyoung would hunch his back over his desk into the night alone, heat packs at the ready, something packaged in styrofoam within bin distance and a cup of something within spillable distance of his hands.

This time though, he’s rereading his cue cards with Youngjae’s iron-tonne head on his shoulder and a energy drink hyped Jackson jiggling his knee into the next century to his right. It’s not his standard corner of isolation where he can cave into his anxieties in peace. There goes his pristine GPA, his scholarship, free ride, family name, fragile narcissism, his inflated ego floating in room of needles.

“Wow, theatre and drama studies,” Jackson leans unnecessarily closer to his papers, “How much of this is pure bullshit?”

“They key, Jackson,” Jinyoung marks his nose with his pen and he honks like a donkey, rubbing the ink all over, “Is to dilute the bullshit in your analysis into something the markers can barely taste.”

“And is that the key to your success, _nerd_?”

“Clearly, sabre _dick_.”  

Jackson cups his groin and shifts away from him, sniffing into his diagrams of tendons. Jinyoung smiles to himself. It’s been a few days and it feels like the months that he’d lost had crossed over their bridge.

Youngjae snorts awake on his shoulder and wipes his drool with the paw of his sweater. Jinyoung brushes his bangs out of his eyes.

They study at Jackson’s place, an actual penthouse with an actual pool, and though the view of the sprawling urban canopy gives him a rush, the clutter of every flat surface in the home does not. In Jackson’s defence, because he just always has to have one, he’s too preoccupied running aroung to lessons and five hour long practices in the gym, to cramming in three hour’s worth of study into one before waking up at ass o’clock in the morning, to give two craps about where he keeps his laundry. A college athlete’s life he sniffs, brushing a crocodile tear from his cheek.

Jaebum is, of course, too well accustomed to seeing runners that look like they’ve been chewed up beneath a couch that’s larger than the kitchen countertop in Jinyoung’s apartment, as well as the assortment of cheese product wrappers stuffed behind the cushions, to give those two craps either.

Instead, he looks like he’s having the migraine of his life, burning craters into his papers and attempting to groove out cravasses into the dining table with his pen with a hand fisted into his fringe. Jinyoung glances at him, sometimes catching Jackson’s own gaze.

Jaebum hasn’t told him but he knows he’s only running on a few fretful hours of sleep at night. He can tell when they’re in class that his eyelids droop and he has to nudge him awake, to urge him to just push through five more minutes. Paired with the nausea and the ache, Jaebum hasn’t been able to cope well with doing much aside from sitting down and trying his best to take notes and hold in the itch in his throat, the burble in his stomach.

Even more so the stress of finals, the stress of being half-coherent for finals, is pushing him to the point of being a big, glooming cloud.

“Wait, Jinyoung,” he frowns at his cue cards, “I know I keep asking this but what camera was it again for _Sans Soleil_?”

It’s the third time he’s asked. “16mm Beaulieu silent film camera.”

“Thanks. Sorry.”

Youngjae shares a concerned glance with Jinyoung before turning to face Jaebum, “Hyung, you look exhausted.” It’s not hard to notice these days and Youngjae, more perceptive than his soft eyes and round apple cheeks could reveal, had always been slightly more attuned to his hyung.

“You should worry about yourself,” Jaebum waves his hand.

“You’re not overworking, are you?

“No, no I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”

“But you look terrible, what are you doing?”

“Youngjae, can I ask you something?” Jackson swoops in and swings the spotlight to him. Youngjae frowns but he turns to him anyway, raising an unimpressed brow.

“What?”

“Uh...uhm…”

“Youngjae-yah, you want to take a break with me and go outside?” Jinyoung swoops in and stands up, pulling the younger up by the sleeve, “I’m hungry, we can buy whatever snacks you want.”

Brightening at the thought of high sodium and processed sugar, Youngjae drops his pen and moves quick, quick to slip on his sneakers, all suspicions on his weird hyungs forgotten. Jinyoung shoots Jackson and Jaebum a look and the two of them turn sheepish, shrugging.

The mini mart down the street is lime green and peppered with orange fruit motifs; it’s kind of cute in its screaming citrus-y kind of way. Youngjae has a hop  and twirl in his steps as he contemplates between cheddar covered chips and mutated gummy-somethings dipped in sour crystals, studying each packet with the finesse of a 3am gamer. Jinyoung lingers beside him, half-heartedly perusing through the eight different flavours of mineral water.

Jaebum really was struggling in concentrating these days. It’s illogical but the guilt cuts deep into him, knowing there’s a chance he might not even be able to show up for finals without--

“I heard through the grapevine that Jaebum hyung invited you to that gala thing that his mom is having,” it seems like Youngjae has chosen both the snacks and was now picking between squid or octopus crackers, “I’ll be going too! You can carpool with me to the place.”

Jinyoung ducks his head a little, feeling sort of embarrassed for no particular reason, “Honestly, I’m sort of nervous.”

“Because you’ve never been to something like this before?”

He nods. Youngjae waves a badly drawn octopus in his face, “Don’t worry about it, hyung. It’s Jaebum’s mom who’s hosting it, so it’ll be fun and relaxing. She might have those finger foods I like.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think anything that requires you to wear a tie can be considered relaxing.”

“Trust me, you’ll be fine. Better yet, you can just follow me and Jaebum hyung around all night and then you won’t have to talk to anyone. That’s because Jaebum doesn’t know half the guests usually but also because he has this scary-looking face every time his mom makes him taking his piercings off,” he laughs to himself, “Mrs. Im will love you, I can tell.”

A bit pleased, he raises his brows, “Really? How?”

Youngjae shrugs and, deciding to get something vaguely organic looking for Jackson, tails off to the tiny health foods section with Jinyoung in tow, “I just think so. Jaebum hyung doesn’t make a lot of close friends so I think she kind of has to, but really, you’re a very likeable person, hyung.”

“Yah, aren’t you laying this a bit on too thick? You’re trying to get me to pay aren’t you?”

Youngjae scrunches his face and beams at him, “I’m just telling the truth! That hurts, hyung. But I did leave my wallet on the dining table.”

Jinyoung pinches his nose and Youngjae yowls, rustles of foil almost falling out his arms, “You’re lucky you’re my cutest dongsaeng,” Jinyoung says, taking his wallet out without much remorse.

Once they're back outside with a plastic bag rustling against Jinyoung's thigh and the octopus crackers split open between them, Youngjae chews slowly, pensive, before beginning to talk.

“Do you think something’s... _off_ about Jaebum hyung lately?” he nibbles the edge of a cracker, his concern naked.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs, “I don’t know, but I think he’s going through a rough time. He won’t tell me about it, but he’s sick. That’s obvious enough.”

Jinyoung feels the back of his neck prickle and flame, “Sick? Like, how sick?”

“I don’t know!” Youngjae shoves the rest of the snack in his mouth, his concerns contorting into a frown, “He’s so pale now and he’s always coughing or something. It’s been like that for weeks and I told him to go to the doctor but I don’t think he has,” he shoves his hands in his pockets, “He never listens to my advice.”

Jinyoung squeezes his elbow, “Oh, Youngjae-yah, I’m sure he just doesn’t want you to worry. He’ll be fine.”

Most of the time, Jinyoung isn’t averse to lying, but sometimes the words are heavy enough, brittle enough against the roof of his mouth, that he feels like he’s swallowed chalk. But he smiles anyway. Youngjae softens a little, all worst cases mollified.

“I’m glad you stuck around, Jinyoung hyung.”

“Me too, kiddo.”

And that, is not a lie.

 

 

Jaebum slumps forward and smacks his head on his desk. He groans, deep in his chest and closes his eyes.

“I give up. I’m fucked.”

They’re no longer at Jackson’s place and it’s well past sunset, pomegranate pinks and blood orange drapes whisking into blackberry blue, it tastes like a sleepy cocktail in the quiet of Jaebum’s perch in the sky.

Jaebum shoves a handful of sour gummies into his mouth. He chews solemnly as his eyes disappear into his frown.

They’re in his room, a coagulation of papers and bedsheets rucked up into a pile and the air had stung with a nauseating perfume and tang before Jaebum had hurried to open the balcony door. Jinyoung had followed him back to his apartment despite his attempts at shaking him off. He had known with a look that Jaebum was crumbling with stress and the moment he got home he’d still try to cram information into his addled head.

He sighs softly beside him and shuffles through his flashcards, “If you keep thinking like that, then yeah, you will be fucked. Come on, stop eating candy and tell what kind of camera was used in _Sans Soleil_.”

“I like sour gummies.” He reaches for another handful and gets his hand slapped, “16mm Banlieue silent something.” he grumbles.

Jinyoung smiles, satisfied, “See? We’re getting somewhere.”

“Yeah, it only took me four times to remember one stupid thing. Fantastic.”

Jinyoung stabs his nails into his hand and Jaebum yelps, “What are you doing??”

Relentless, Jinyoung shakes his cards at his nose, “Don’t act like this. You’re being too hard on yourself.”

Abashed, Jaebum slips another sour gummy into his mouth, eyes pointedly not looking at where Jinyoung was digging red crescents into his skin. He removes his hand, ears hot. It was too easy for him to forget when he got too comfortable, so easy to slip back into their usual banter and tease and ignore that things were no longer smooth all over.

Jinyoung kicks his ankle lightly and Jaebum’s neck splotches in funny shades of red in the lamplight.

A hand suddenly flies to his mouth, a hoarse cough tears from his throat. Paper shredding, gravel breaking, a hammer against bone. Jinyoung bolts up, chair clattering back behind him. Small slivers of crimson slip from between his fingers.

He grabs a tissue out of his pocket and takes his hand only to be pushed away, panic flickering in Jaebum’s eyes, and he backs off, rolls of shame and guilt churning in his gut at once more having stepped too far.

“I’m sorry,” he says, breathless.

“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have pushed you,” he looks down and sighs, “Just, it’s harder. When you’re around. Let’s just...I’ll clean this up.”

He moves to brush away the petals but Jinyoung steps forward first, careful to avoid his skin, and sweeps the petals into his hand. They look like drops of paint, thick and glossy in his palm. “I think it’s better if I leave. We probably shouldn’t see each other for a while.”

It’s funny how this sounds, as if they were more. Maybe Jinyoung should just let them go.

“No, wait.” Jaebum moves to grab his wrist but he falters, his fingertips brush his bone, “I don’t want that.”

The petals crumple in his fist, “What’s the point in still keeping me around if all you’re going to get is worse?”

“It’s going to get worse either way.”

“Not if you just go and get the stupid surgery. Why are you even still here? There’s no point in keeping me around when--,” his voice catches, “It’s not going to go away until I’m gone. What’s the point?”

He looks at Jaebum’s face and feels trapped. He could cry. He could go home. Things don’t have to be hard. Forget his existence, forget that anything ever meant something, that he could make him laugh and frown and curl his fingers to a fist because sometimes he really did piss him off. Stupid fucking Im Jaebum. He could do it right now, two steps away from his door, a bleak of ocean flooding between them.

Memory was nothing but preservation of time and space, cluttered amidst a horde, too easy to misplace. Jinyoung was good at losing things.

Jaebum’s eyes soften and dip into a terrible smile. He takes his wrist in his hand and holds it loosely, as if he would to a bird’s wing, full of fragile clippings and silk string bones, and looks down at where the blue of his vein ran into his fingers, still clutched around his petals, “Because whether you’re here or not I’m still going to love you. That’s the point.”

Jinyoung really wants to cry, “Don’t say something so stupid, you stupid piece of shit.”

The grip on him tightens, “I’m not being stupid and I know this is hard to talk about but I don’t think you understand. I’m - I’m afraid of losing you again.”

“You never had me in the first place.”

“I know,” Jaebum loosens his hold, “I know.”

“And you might die, you might live like this forever. And I can’t allow that.”

He’s then guided back to his seat, Jaebum tugging him down and then prying his fingers open, making him drop the flecks of red to the floor. “I know you won’t.”

Jinyoung feels his stomach drop, “You’ve already decided?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to listen to me?”

“Well, actually I listened to my doctor but same difference,” he breathes a short laugh.

“You’re going to get the surgery.” It’s not a question, but it’s the only answer. It’s the answer Jinyoung wanted, of course he did, he wants this. Jaebum will be alright and he’ll be okay and this is all he wanted.

It feels like there’s a small dip in his chest when Jaebum nods. “I am. But, _only_ if you promise me that you’ll still be here when I get back.”

Jinyoung pulls his wrist away, “Wha--”

“I don’t want to get rid of you.”

“Are you trying to be miserable? We don’t know what will happen if you still...you know.”

Even now, maybe he’s just cruel, Jaebum raises a brow, mocking, “You can say it you know. Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

He really wants punch him in the face, “If you still fall in love. With me.” he grits. The night is stifling, the lamplight weak, Jaebum smiles like he’s won a prize.

“Why do you think you’re unloveable or something?”

“What?” he splutters, “I don’t think that.”

“Then how come you still act like it’s impossible for me to have feelings for you?”

“I’m _not_.” He totally does. Fuck, “Just. Just shut up already. Fine, I promise. I’ll still be here when you come back and I’ll trick you into giving me one million won so just shut up and go back to studying. God, you’re so stupid.”

Jaebum fucking laughs at him. His front teeth stick like picket fencing, stupid and white. What an asshole.

The hands on Jaebum’s clock tick to two when they both give up, holes in Jaebum’s head from being drilled like a nail and his breath smelt like coffee stains and sugar packets, eyelids slamming shut as soon as he closed his textbook. He’d only disappeared once more to the bathroom.

Only now, with him calm and the ache of the hour lulling them like fleece thrown over their shoulders, did Jinyoung admit to himself, just briefly, that he was glad that he could still stay. That he and Jaebum could try again one more time, maybe. The thought burnt like chemicals rubbing into his tongue.

 

 

All possibilities and worse case scenarios combined, exams pass by moderately smoothly. That is, not counting how Jinyoung’s sure he spent half of his brain power staying awake and wondering whether all those all-nighters he’d stuck through with Jaebum had worked, if he was managing to hold in his flowers, if he didn’t feel like collapsing like he was.

All in all, he only had a single heart attack, during their shared exam when halfway through he’d seen Jaebum dash outside. His hand had slipped, a streak of ink sliced across his paper.

Right after, when everyone moved out of the hall with an onset of carpal tunnel, Jinyoung had caught him and punched his stomach in relief when he’d been assured he’d finished.

The peak of elation dies dramatically in the middle of the shop. There are croutons in Jackson’s mouth and a thermos of black tea dribbling onto the counter when Jinyoung, hands still feeling like they’re about to peel as he’s arranging a display, realises how much, to an immeasurable extent, he’s probably fucked up.

He screeches into his teeth. Youngjae drops a pot on his foot.

“Ah, but Jinyoungie, you forget what kind of people your friends are.” Jackson slings his arms around his neck after his heartbeat starts regulating again and he’s no longer carving a hole into the ground from pacing.

“If you lose your scholarship we’ll be here to financially aid you until we’re sick of your fat ass. Hey, better yet, we can bribe the school. I bet we could even promote you to, like, the dean or something.”

“Jackson, shut up,” Mark, somehow a lot more familiar with him than the last time Jinyoung checked, throws a pebble at him.

Youngjae, from beside the cacti and the succulents, gnaws on the plastic of his ice cream spoon. “More importantly, now that it’s break, should we all do something?”

“That’s easy!” Jackson jostles Jinyoung in his arms as he hops from foot to foot, “After Jaebum’s prissy gala party thing --”

“Careful, that’s my mom’s prissy gala party --”

“I have something planned for all of us. You too, Markie.” He leans dangerously far off his neck, winking at a stone-faced Mark.

Jinyoung allows him to hang on, amused, feels the least bit less queasy, “As long as we come back alive.”

Jackson taps his nose and Jinyoung breaks into the largest grin he’s had all week.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rolls down the car window, drops this off, rolls it back up. not my proudest stuff, but the ball's gotta keep rolling.


	10. the one with the suits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd

Jinyoung’s eyes jump open and an immediate sense of doom pummels into his chest. His hand shoots out to his phone on his desk and he fumbles with numbers and buttons and eyes screeching at the glaring brightness as he punches, automatically, the first person on his fingertips. He listens to the chirp of the dial, waiting, waiting, impatience the hull of a ship plowing into his breath.

“Hello?” Youngjae’s voice is thick with sleep, cottony from the reception, and Jinyoung breathes a thimble easier. Calmer. Calm.

“Sorry, Youngjae yah,” he rubs his eyes and spots dance before him, bashful, “I, uh, panicked and called you.”

“Jinyoung hyung? It’s like...almost six in the morning. What’s wrong?” There’s the rustle of sheets and pillows on the other end, Youngjae snuffling into his bed to sit up.

The dawn is closing in with a rush of footsteps outside his window, sheets of iron molten at the edges breathing silently into his mouth. It’s restless, to be thrumming with nervous energy within the quiet hours. Jinyoung sighs, kicks his covers aside.

“The party gala thing. Jaebum’s mom.” he says, pulling his knees to his chest and suddenly feeling silly. What is he even doing? A mess to himself.

Goosebumps slowly emerge on his legs, skimming across his skin. He rubs his calves to warm himself, feeling as if he’d swallowed a nest of birds with feathers and tufts clumped in his throat, beaks bursting into his sinews. Curious eyes perched on wires coo at him from outside. There are only a handful of days left before he has to step foot into an event leagues beneath his comfort, and the previous night had been scribbled with worries of etiquette and elocutions and broken vases; every single possibility of dying on the spot.

Youngjae makes a meek sound, one part sleepy, the other part tired-of-his-bullshit.

“You’re going to have to speak in sentences,” the other end crackles.

Jinyoung clears his throat of nothing. There’s sense of dread that he’s coming off like a child seeking solace for monsters beneath beds and ghosts in closets, irrational, something to endure. Something a twenty-something year old something should not be.

“I’ve never been to anything like this before and I, uh, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

The younger snorts. Jinyoung covers his face. He knows.

“Don’t overthink it. Jaebum’s mom is kind and she’s not going to expect you to identify different types of forks or tell the difference between off-white and ivory, or whatever you’ve been googling for the past three hours.”

False. Jinyoung had only spent two hours blazing his retinas away.

“But, how am I supposed to act? What if everyone can tell I’m poor just by looking at me?”

Youngjae giggle snorts. How unattractive, “If you force yourself to act differently, it’ll only be too obvious you’re trying to conform to your standards of affluency. Which, by the way, are ridiculous.”

Somehow, by godly fate or an inherited genetic disposition, Youngjae always seemed to have his head on tight, whilst Jinyoung himself was feeling blind, on his hands and knees and palming for loose screws to breaking foundations like some idiot.

“For someone who just woke up at six in the morning, isn’t your head too big?”

Youngjae tickles his ear with a laugh, “For someone who doesn’t own a suit, shouldn’t you be more careful with someone who can buy you one?”

“What?” another stab of discomfort, nailed an inch deeper, “Youngjae, what are you saying?”

“Well there’s a dress code you see...”

“I’m not going to let you spend money on me.”

“It’s a _favour_. It’s nothing.” Well that’s easy to say and a lot harder to swallow, depending, of course, on the person, “Besides, what were you going to do? Wear a button up and a department store bowtie?”

“No, of course not,” he snaps, and then, more quietly, “I was gonna just get a rental or something.”

Youngjae barks, not unkind though a little degrading right at his face. “Hyung, no! No way! I’d burn it the moment you stepped foot in. I’ll take you out today to buy you one. _Please_.” Jinyoung sighs through his nose, a little irritated.

A warm shade of blue washes over his walls and it looks lovely, cool as the shadow of a brook. He hates this ugly feeling.

“Actually, I’m surprised Jaebum hyung hasn’t offered to buy you one yet.”

“Oh,” Jinyoung glances out his window to paint strokes of white, “he has actually. I forgot.”

Youngjae snorts on the other end, “Of course. He’s like a puppy around you.”

“Don’t say stuff like that.”

There’s another soft kick of movement on the other end, “Hm, I even asked him about it but he just brushed me off. What a jerk.”

Jinyoung breathes in, a little endeared at the petulance in his voice, and falls back to his pillow with a light bounce and watches the mess of his room, the paper skyscrapers and dog-eared pages slowly coating in lavender, in rose, in fields of Spring in the sky. He breathes out.

It’s not like he’s going to go alone. Jaebum, Youngjae and Jackson would be there to make sure he doesn’t make a fool of himself, preferably making him sit down in a corner of the finger food table for the duration so he doesn’t have to actually participate by filling up with frankenfurters grown from Spain or whatever. Unless, of course, they all ditch him for fancier things like black caviar or friends in higher places or friends in higher places who ate black caviar.

“Hyung. I can hear you thinking. Listen,” Jinyoung doesn’t really want to, but there isn’t much of a choice, “just let me and Jaebum take you out today and we’ll answer whatever dramatic questions you have.”

“I’m not dramatic.”

“You called me at the ass wipe of dawn because of a party by Jaebum’s _mom_.”

Jinyoung frowns, a car honks outside, flocks of wings flutter like leaves in a storm, a leaking faucet drips and the heating hums beneath him, like the whole world purring, “If you were in my shoes then you’d understand that my entire experience of mothers is senile women who do _not_ rent out venues and bathe in crystal bathtubs of champagne.”

He likes making Youngjae laugh, “I hate to break your fantasy hyung, but there is no mom on this planet that does that.”

“Put yourself in my shoes, Youngjae. I don’t know what I’m doing at _all._ ”

The other makes a little noise, “Oh, right! You need dress shoes.” he chirps.

Jinyoung drills a hole into his ceiling.

 

 

 

“Why in the world would my mom ask you to identify colours?” The measuring tape around Jinyoung’s waist is pulled tight and he inhales sharply. Knobbly fingers come to measure and mark his frame an inch from laceration.

Jaebum, infuriatingly relaxed in a tacky jacket, looks too conspicuous in this tailors amidst all the silk blends with stupid names like Prussian mauve or whatever, whilst a man probably born within the nineteenth century had been cutting off his circulation for the past fifteen minutes or so. He frowns at him, bruises a rib in the process.

Jinyoung tries to roll his eyes to ceiling, “I didn’t specifically say your mother. I just, I don’t know, the topic might come up. What is the difference between coral and salmon anyway?

“Do I look like a wedding planner?”

“Eh,” Jinyoung squints his eyes and tilts his head a little. The tailor snaps it right back up, “Maybe if you took your piercings off.”

“Hilarious.” There is a terrible, terrible grin handed over to him. Disgusting.

Out of his limited head movement, Jinyoung can make out Youngjae crinkling his nose at them beside the spools of merino blend, no longer tapping at his phone so to pinch his face together as if he’d inhaled a lemon. He sniffs at the flashing _GAME OVER_ like some personal offence. It’s not like he asked Youngjae to tag along. Just, damn his judgmental baby face treatment.  

The old man steps away and jots down the last measurement on his notepad, nods at him to step down from his stool and turns to disappear to the back room with a creak. Youngjae goes back to stabbing his phone. Jaebum busies himself with the display suits.

Warm and almond-brown, the shop was cut into a slice of brick between two offices, easy to miss with Jaebum having had to catch his elbow as he strode right past, chuckling. It was draped with a familiarity in the way Youngjae leant against shelves that had molded to his body, and how Jaebum let his hand roam, as if a curious child once more at his first visit with fingers scrubbed clean from gumminess and  his buzzing legs stilled to allow the same exact yellow tape to measure him.

“Which design do you want?” Jaebum nods to the displayed designs, a row of jackets that looked pretty much exactly the same. He purses his lips.

“I know it’s just me, but is there even a difference?”

Jaebum smiles as if he expected it and tilts his nose slightly. “Simply, there’re different kinds of cuts and silhouettes. No one really cares about it though, not until they’re wearing it,” he runs a critical eye along Jinyoung’s body and it makes him want to recede into himself, “Honestly, I think you’d look better in Italian cause your shoulders and waist are kinda small.”

It’s a sore point to hit, Jaebum’s oblivious maybe, but there’s a thing about looking like a twig: weak, willowy, a sallow frame upright and rigid. It makes the back of Jinyoung’s neck burn with a self-consciousness that urges him to shrink into the walls.

Youngjae hops up, “I can help! Hyung, let me choose.”

Frankly, Youngjae wasn't a fashion guru nor was he sharp eyed for _haute couture,_ but he wasn't necessarily bad at choosing his own clothes to wear either. Still, when he points at a grey checkered suit and a red tartan horror bordering on looking like a butter biscuit tin, Jinyoung begins to wonder if he was just fooling around with him as he places one tinging into a dangerous shade of baby pink atop the pile in his arms.

Jaebum retires to the side, just watching with his hands in his pocket, amused.

“You’re taking this seriously, of course.” Jinyoung says.

“Of course.” Youngjae replies.

He allows himself to be pushed into the dressing room. He purses his lips again.

Immediately, he ditches anything patterned or excessively brighter than a shade of grey, careful not to crinkle the fabric as he drops them onto a stool. There’s a navy one, ocean blue and deep enough that he’s afraid his fingers might smudge away its colour like ink.  

Ah, yes. Time to strip.

Jinyoung stops, thoughts of him ripping the fabric, pulling a thread and unravelling the entire piece whilst still in his underwear, someone walking in, flash through him relentlessly like water through cracks and he wants to pinch himself straight. Great, now he’s overthinking and spending too long staring at his reflection and Youngjae and Jaebum are going to start wondering if he’s suddenly died and walk in on him. Sweat beads at his forehead.

He tugs his shirt off and quickly slips on the dress shirt, buttoning himself.

“Hyung, did you die in there?”

Youngjae’s voice is suddenly right behind his ear, way, way too loud. Jinyoung shrieks and he almost, _almost_ , _rips_ a button off. He whirls around and hisses right into his face, feels like he’s swamped himself in boiling water.

“ _Youngjae_! Don’t do that!”

“You’re taking too long, hurry up. Here, I’ll help.” his hand shoots for the buttons on his jeans and Jinyoung slaps his hand away, a big loud _smack_ and the younger howls, gripping his fingers. Jinyoung immediately grabs them in his own, gently, gently, stroking the blooming redness.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologises, “Just. _Please_ don’t grab my pants like that.”

Youngjae sobs, “I wasn’t going to do anything weird.”

“People usually do weird things when they grab crotches.”

Jaebum’s head pops through the curtain, eyebrows creased, “What’s going on in here?”

“GET OUT.”

Jinyoung, furious, wants to die. Bewilidered, Jaebum ducks out. Youngjae squeezes his stomach, exploding with laughter and Jinyoung shoves his shoulder to the side, feeling his ears burn. Idiots, all of them.

He hides his face in his palm, “Just. Hand me the pants. And turn around and close your eyes.” Youngjae throws them at his face.

The suit is a little loose at the waist and his shoulders don’t really fit. Jinyoung twists the loosened fabric between his fingers, feels the sting of Jaebum’s comment settle in his reflection. Youngjae pops up from behind his shoulder and beams into the mirror, seemingly delighted in his stead. Jinyoung’s eyes crinkle from the sight.

“Wah, not bad, hyung!” He loops his arms around his waist and buttons up the jacket so it pinched his torso a bit more, “Maybe just a little more tweaks, but Kwon nim is a master of this stuff. He can do it in his sleep with a blindfold.”

Jinyoung doesn’t bother pointing out that he wouldn’t need one if he was asleep, but he ruffles his floppy hair like he would a pup and the younger whines and bats his fingers away.

“Stop that. Come on, let’s see what hyung thinks.”

The thought makes Jinyoung irrationally irritated. He brushes aside the curtain.

When they both emerge, Jaebum isn’t there. Instead it’s the old tailor with a pair of pince-nez perched on his gnarly-like nose.

“Where did Jaebum hyung go?” Jinyoung asks, glancing between the door and the shelves.

A thick, wire-white eyebrow is raised. Looking unimpressed at him for no particular reason - it makes him want to twist his mouth - the old man cocks his head to behind the counter and to the door behind the jungle of herringbone and sharkskin greys.

“Went to the bathroom in the back. You should tell him to get a checkup, sounds like it hurts his throat. Stubborn brat.” It’s not an unkind voice. Fond, even.

Jinyoung nods, knowing too much and feeling a coldness press at his palms, glances back and wishes he could go and follow him. He’s tempted to check but with the disapproving look he feels prodding at his throat, he stays still. Stiff, in an uncomfortable suit. Instead, he turns to Youngjae and reassures his muted expression - subtle boy, can always detect the smallest shift of air, the stirs of pollen in the wind - with the pat of hand.

“Is Jaebum hyung okay?”

He smiles. “Yeah, he is. Don’t worry.”

And then, breathlessly, the aforementioned stumbles noisily out of the door. Jaebum’s paler than he last saw with the rim of his eyes watered and red, but he stops when he sees the three of them standing there, waiting for him and gazes expectant.

“Sorry, I was...Yeah,” he chuckles breathlessly and then looks at Jinyoung, addressing him with a quick once over that’s stifling, like soft pricks of grass scratching down his spine, and Jinyoung fights the frown emerging on his lips. Defiant, against a something.

Jaebum wipes his nose, fixes his collar, “You look good. Kwon nim, you can fix the shoulders a bit, right?” Unchanged. Like Jinyoung was just there.

“Are you going to try any others?” he asks.

Jinyoung shakes his head, tongue not working, and Jaebum nods. The neutralness in his tone irritated him. He slips back behind the curtain.

A little duller, pricklier, he huffs at his reflection and quickly unbuttons the suit, letting the stiff fabric droop off his shoulders and the musky smell drop away. Youngjae appears in the mirror reflection behind him, head peeking through the curtain, eyes questioning, and the lines of his face softened with what he assumes is well-meaning sympathy. Jinyoung quirks his lips up, reassuringly.

“What’s that look for?”

The younger shakes his head and slips in, a grin growing on his lips like the pull of a string as he hands Jinyoung his softened, department store t-shirt. “It’s nothing, hyung.”

The fabric slips on like a hug.

Once back out, it’s just the old man again with his knobbly knuckles and hardened fingertips, sewing on a sample of cut fabric to what appears to be a receipt. Coloured the exact same smudged ink as the clothes limp in Jinyoung’s arms. The needle arcs like a small, silver bird slipping through the air. The backdoor is shut tight.

“Let’s wait outside, Youngjae.”

 

 

 

Jinyoung admits it’s a kind of naive when he asks for the address of the venue, assuming he can avoid carpooling and instead take like, the bus. Jackson, with the noodles in his mouth shooting up into his nostrils, finds this the most ludicrous idea he’s ever heard and spills half of his soup onto his sweatpants. Two octaves too high, Jinyoung sneers, his own noodles cold and tasting like bean paste.

It’s a few days until Jinyoung has to style his hair and attempt to look more than presentable since his flaccid little high school graduation. Except this time, he doesn’t get a flimsy certificate to congratulate him for showing up for four years straight. Congratulations! We’re forcing you into the real world now!

At least he was surrounded by his age group, though pandering to seniles was no more than a trick of smiling with the eyes and wearing appropriate clothing.

His suit, fresh and ironed into a crisp, is fabric woven with midnight fibers and the silk stretch of the inner panel is a luxury to slide his palms overs. Safely sealed in plastic and tossed onto Jinyoung’s couch by a hunger-pained Jackson, who had appeared at his door with Youngjae and requested noodles in his boom box voice the moment he’d unlocked his door.

“Don’t laugh at the simple struggles of others.” Jinyoung digs his chopsticks into a tofu square.

“There won’t be a struggle if you just carpool with us.” Youngjae has a shiny balm of soup spread across his top lip and Jinyoung wipes it away with his thumb. Youngjae ducks away.

“I...don’t really want to.”

Jackson takes care to swallow the rest of the soup with his mouth and not his pants, “Why? It’s not like we’re going by a leopard print hummer. You’ve _been_ in a car, right?”

“Of course I have you drillbit. Just. It’s going to be some expensive car with those little statues on the front and it’s a little,” he rotates his wrist, “melodramatic.”

“Melodramatic,” Jackson repeats, dabbing his groin with a tissue. “ _You_ think it’s melodramatic.”

“And. You’d rather take the bus.” Youngjae continues.

Jinyoung doesn’t understand the hesitation, “Yes. I would.”

“Can we join?” they ask in sync. The soup in Jinyoung’s stomach churns warmly, full.

“Firstly, do you guys even own buss passes?”

 

 

 

When Yugyeom isn’t subjected to being a busboy: scalding his baby-teenage hands in boiling waters, scrubbing off the first layer off his skin whilst attempting to grind coffee stains out of porcelain, he joins Jinyoung in creating more coffee stains in the wells of the cups he will eventually have to clean again.

“I made a new friend recently.”

Jinyoung’s in a good mood so he nods, doesn’t harp a _Why_ , Yugyeommie, I didn’t know you could do that!

Instead, he watches the drizzle dapple down on the fogging glass, half listening. The traffic lights outside are soft with red, then green, and then the piercing rumble of engines cutting through still, shallow pools. The coffee is watered down and grainy from the last pot of the day and it leaves a bitter charcoal between his teeth.

Yugyeom’s face is washed in purple and street-lamp yellow, half coated in the dulled white of the light fixtures, and it makes him look boyishly young in his big-teethed grin that, for once, isn’t playful with teasing. His work shirt is pulled tight around his shoulders.

“His name is Bambam and he’s kinda weird. He used to be in the circus, I think? I don’t know if he was serious or not when he told me that, though.”

Jinyoung swirls his cup and watches the last of the foam dissolve into the murk. The name sounds kind of familiar for some reason, but he’s then distracted by a roll of bottomless thunder crawling in from the West. It’s a pleasant hum, electric, heavy clopping footsteps across the mottled sky. The gala is in two days, the revolving arcs of his clock impatient.

Yugyeom, not terribly perceptive when his post-shift jitters are still diffusing through his blood, begins bouncing his leg up and down. His cup jostles atop the saucer.

“And you, hyung? What about that new friend of yours? Jaehyung something?”

Jinyoung smiles, tickled, “Jaebum something.”

“Yeah, close enough. I haven’t seen you with him since that time.”

“Oh, well, we’re still friends, of course,” He says without much thought, then he frowns. Of course what? That there isn’t a prospect of them not being friends? He gulps down a mouthful of his drink, feels it travel uncomfortably down his throat and his teeth click against the rim, painful against his gums. Yugyeom cocks an eyebrow, an invitation to explain.

“Just,” Jinyoung tries to piece together something, snipping and sewing the tangle around his ribs into words, “He’s, sort of hurting because of me. And now, when I see him...Everything feels like --”

Like.

A kaleidoscope, maybe. A fragment of colours, collapsing and colliding, folding and unfolding. A mirrored reflection, obscured. He’s getting harder to look at these days.

“Does he like like you?” Yugyeom looks a little too dependable from a newborn right out of the cocooning egg shell of high school, but his playground jargon of _like like_ makes Jinyoung simper.

“Yes,” he admits with a funny voice, “he _likes likes_ me.”

Yugyeom kicks his legs a little, “And do you? It’s simple, really.”

“Yugyeommie, there’s nothing simple about how people feel.”

“Well, my life is just easier than yours.”

“You’re a baby, you don’t have a life.”

“I’m _literally_ almost of age.”

“And you’re also _literally_ still _not_ of age so…”

Yugyeom clicks his tongue and there’s a flicker of white outside, threading through the sky, “Hyung, you’re avoiding my question,” and he rolls his eyes, typical.

“No I’m not,” thunder like an empty stomach, the sky swallows itself, “I don’t _like_ like Jaebum hyung.”

The drizzle grows cyclic. Lashes of hail strike like nails against the glass, bouncing off onto the pavement like a game of children’s marbles and Jinyoung feels a notch in his heartbeat, electrified, the sizzle of air reaching its boiling point.

“I trust you to know yourself,” Jinyoung can’t tell if Yugyeom is taunting him or being heartfelt or both, “Because there’s no one but you to figure yourself out. You know?”

Jinyoung waits in the cafe until the storm is over, sitting in silence as Yugyeom washes their cups in the kitchen.

 

 

 

It’s been raining incessantly since last night and the usual wisp of Jinyoung’s hair is now a sad, floppy mop that he has to flick from his eyes, raindrops damp against his skin as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. His clothes feel as if they’d been smothered in glue paste, clingy and unbreathable.

There are people who check weather reports and keep umbrellas in bags and hallway stands, who are prepared when it begins to pour when the sky becomes the sea. Jinyoung is not that kind of person.

The convenience store is a happy little family mart the colour of squash with big, bubbly fonts like orange juice and sunglasses and it chimes in welcome when his sneakers squeak inside. He drips onto linoleum, melting and skidding in front of the _wet floor_ sign of a comical little man, falling.

Jinyoung gasps in relief at the shelter, wiping himself off with a drenched sleeve uselessly. He shivers, sneezes. The air is frigid as a freezer. The cashier at the front gives him a sympathetic glance before returning to his newspaper, preoccupied with what looks like sudoku and runny blue pen. He’s teetering on the edge of looking senile, with pepper greys thinning along his hairline and a pronounced gut behind a butter-yellow polo tucked into his belt.

“Piss pouring, isn’t it?” he chuckles a little, and Jinyoung smiles politely, itching the back of his neck, embarrassed about his state.

“Ah, yes it is. Sorry about your floor.”

The cashier waves his hand, “Don’t sweat it, rain never hurt no one.”

The wet floor sign glares at them and Jinyoung nods, not keen to keep talking. Instead, something captures his attention. A head peaks out from the far end of the mart, behind a bright shelf of crisp packets and candy wrappers: a Jaebum with dampish hair and shocked but amused round eyes, unbelieving of coincidences. The snake bites on his eyelid are faint, more like freckles in the subdued light.

“Jinyoung?” The wind howls hauntingly behind the glass and Jaebum’s smile is small but dopey, “You look like you swam across an ocean.”

He huffs and blows the stray hairs itching his nose away, “I don’t have an umbrella,” he explains, then starts to move, squeaking and squelching his way over.

“Clearly.”

Jaebum, in a thick rain-spattered hoodie, stands illuminated before the freezers like a god of carbonated beverages and carton milk, delighted at running into Jinyoung as if he’d been hoping to all day. A completely normal and comfort-clothed college student, he looks like something attainable. A foot away with his token ramyeon and sour gummies, he’s white in pallor but the peaks of his lips still twitch into something content, relaxed, his presence a soothing hum.

Jinyoung shakes the rain from his hair again and traces the droplets that shiver on the tips of his fringe.

“Why are you eating junk? It’s the last thing you should have.” They stand side by side, neither of them being able to face anything but beaming packets of cheddar-flavoured pretz sticks.

“Yeah, I know,” Jaebum forces a chuckle, “But nothing really stays down for long anyway.”

Oh. Right.

“Do you,” Jinyoung licks his lips, “Do you think you can make it for tomorrow?”

“I kind of have to. I invited you after all, and my parents haven’t seen me in a long while. I may or may or not have been avoiding them.”

“Do they…” Jinyoung glances at the register. The cashier’s engrossed in his newspaper, too much for anyone to be at sudoku, “Do they know?”

Jaebum shakes his head, “No way, they’ll flip. Fly me out by tomorrow.”

“Cause they love you.”

“Because they love me,” Jaebum nods. Jinyoung notices the umbrella in his hand then, A candy-striped navy and white that reminds him of sailors on ship decks and beach resorts flickering on grainy televisions.

Jaebum follows his eyes to his own hand, “You need an umbrella,” he points out and suddenly he slides all his food right into Jinyoung’s arms, walking away with hurry to the other side of the store. Jinyoung follows, a little hurt, a little relieved, a few footsteps behind.

“I hope you like yellow.”

Sunflower bright and looking like it was the stuff rubber ducks were made out of, Jaebum moves his arm to toss it at him and Jinyoung shrieks, drops everything in his arms and it all clatters at his feet as he shoots his hands up to catch.

The cashier peers at them from his glasses, a smidge of amusement in his wrinkles as Jaebum laughs, umbrella still gripped tightly in his hands, and his eyes creased into crinkles, his grin into pearls, his voice the loudest thing in the store, the storm, the whole world.

“You asshole!” Jinyoung picks up a packet of shrimp crackers and lodges it as his chest. It bounces harmlessly off.

Giggling, Jaebum ducks down to pick up everything at his feet and drops them on the counter with a little smirk, ignoring him, “Just these, thanks,” he smiles as if nothing happened and pulls out his wallet from his back pocket, fingers carding through bills until he found something small enough.

“Let’s go, Jinyoung ah.” He motions him to leave once he haves everything in a bag, the plastic bouncing against his thigh as he walks to the door, pulling out his umbrella.

“Ah, wait,” Jinyoung stops him as the doors slide open and the blast of the storm stuns him momentarily, a _drip drip drip_ hitting their shoes across the thin chassis of metal that separated them from tile to concrete, a weak barrier between boxes of silence and sound. He digs through Jaebum’s bag and fishes out his brand new umbrella and pops it open. A thick _thud thud_ drums above him as he steps out, protected. It feels like there’s sunlight sheltering his head.

Jaebum looks at him funny, one brow raised and the other pulled into his forehead, charmed. He smiles funny. Lopsided, his whole face.

“It suits you,” he says, stepping out to join him.

It’s not until they make the first turn does Jinyoung realise that Jaebum hadn’t parted for his side of town.

“You’re walking me home?” it makes his fingers flutter around his handle.

Jaebum shrugs, “I guess.”

Jinyoung hums, looking away. The world is dripping in wet paint, weeps of inky blacks to teary blues, smudges and smudges. Lines blurred, echoes and refractions, fluorescence and sounds jumping from toe to toe, hand to hand, cartwheels of rhythms playing its trickiest, most playful steps. Jinyoung feels like he should say something, before they faded into the movements. It felt wrong, though, to break the noisy silence.

It’s when they’re beneath a streetlamp that Jaebum convulse beside him.

“Hyung!” his umbrella nearly slips from his fingers and he rushes towards him, lowering himself to look underneath his parasol.

Peaking from the hand clasped to his mouth, Jinyoung sees tissues of colour slip out of Jaebum’s mouth. White - ghost blue in the moonlight - and familiar. Chamomile. Soothing. He claps Jaebum’s back softly, wishing he could squeeze his eyes shut, that he wasn’t helpless, that he could help. They’re at a stand still, Jaebum’s hacking like axe against wood, chopping thuds, a blunt edge pounding, and Jinyoung feels his muscles contract in violent shivers.

It doesn’t last long and soon Jaebum’s standing tall again, clearing his throat and sniffling as he shakes the petals off his hand. He wipes the water from his eyes, he brushes Jinyoung off.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Jaebum wipes his reddened nose, “I’m okay.”

Jinyoung hates the attempt of comfort, the mollifying expression he’s being given half-heartedly, how he can still pull the farce that he’s not looking worse every time they see each other. That he doesn’t make his heart hurt every time. The rain beats on. Jinyoung glances behind them, sees flecks of white whipped in the breeze, caught in storm and beaten into puddles, pummeled against the concrete like paper.

A cloud covered night, the sky fluffed in grief, Jaebum turning to walk ahead of him. Jinyoung’s never hated flowers so much than at that moment.

 

 

 

“It feels like we’re bringing our Jinyoungie to a birthday party.” Jackson sways with sea legs on the jostle of the bus, careening down the main vein of the city that connected downtown to uptown, the vehicle poorly lit and filled enough that Jinyoung, Youngjae and the talking loudmouth were forced to stand.

Amidst all the salarymen playing phone games and the strange abundance of students in turtlenecks, Jinyoung could see them all glancing at them. Odd they must look, dashed up and groomed (Jinyoung had put up the least resistance he could to the disgusting feel of hair gel seeping into his roots) and looking like they’ve been carved from onyx, from sea-blue, from midnight. His feet are tight in new dress shoes, pinching at his toes.

“You’re only a few months older than me Jackson. And Youngjae’s like, a baby.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Youngjae objects. Jinyoung likes how he still looks all marshmallowy despite his clothing, like he would melt if Jinyoung praised him until he flushed a strawberry pink.

He pinches his cheek, “A cute baby.”

Youngjae whines and knocks his hand away, mumbling.

“Still,” Jackson teeters on his heels, “You need to, Jinyoung. Cause it’s nothing but stuffy people who talk about nothing so we literally can just fuck around and shit. It’s _our_ night.”

“What Jackson means,” Youngjae translates, “Is whilst the old people talk about old people stuff, they won’t mind us as we’re Jaebum hyung’s _friends_.”

The last word Youngjae enunciates a little odd but Jinyoung just nods, too anxious to read into anything, and just lets the vibrations of the bus pushing against the road rattle him into a stilted silence. Content to let Youngjae and Jackson start their banter until the bus stopped.

The building where the venue was held was, simply, very tall. Monolithic, a great, grand arch into the sky. Jinyoung feels another storm building at the back of his mouth, feeling a spot of drizzle land on his cheek as he steps out.

 

 

 

“This,” Jackson swivels his entire body around, head lolling like an overweight fruit dangling on a vine, “Is the weirdest fucking elevator.”

He’s right, though. This _is_ a really fucking weird elevator. Mirrors and mirrors, reflections and deflections and the intersection of two points becoming four becoming eight. Jinyoung looking back at himself, behind him, around him. Ugh.

Youngjae looks a little squeamish at the entire illusion of floating in a space of Jacksons and Jinyoungs and himselves, and instead chooses to bore down at the transparent floor of a twenty metre drop beneath them, before, feeling squeamish from that, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I think it adds charm.”

“My favourite kind of homey feeling, vertigo.” Jackson’s still light on his feet. He turns around and the entire world twists.

“The disembodied reminder of the redundancy of everything.”

“We’re going to a party not a _morgue_.”

“It makes for good conversation.”

“Where? A cemetery?”

The door chimes open before Jinyoung can respond and Jackson dashes out with Youngjae at his heels, giddy in his footsteps against the floor. Jinyoung sighs, fiddling with his cuffs before stepping out to join them.

It’s Jaebum who’s greeting the guests, standing dappered at the main doors in black and a beaming smile as guests walk by, shaking their hands, bowing quickly, all familiarity and little laughs.

“JAEBUM.” Jackson envelops him in a teetering hug on his toes, lifting him a subtle centimetre off the ground. Not particularly happy, Jaebum smacks his arm and tries to push himself away, which only makes Jackson’s grip tighter and tighter.

They all laugh - Jaebum with all his teeth, Jackson with all his voice, Youngjae with all his body - and all is right in the world.

 

 

 

“How do you feel?”

It’s a strange question.

Jinyoung had been hoping to stay hidden for a little longer. Jaebum appears beside him and crosses his arms onto the railing, peering down. His hair is illuminated auburn, whipping around in the wind and dripping down to brush his eyes. His cheeks are a reflected navy and opal, fingers dancing with reds and pinks, his eyes a deep, pooling black.

The rooftop garden is simple and urban. Trimmed, prismic hedges and potted conifers in marble and coal black soil; small lights glow above stone benches. Herbs: thyme and parsley, the woozy hint of rosemary and mint, line themselves down in brackets of earth.

It’s a token of green hidden amongst towering giants and furthermore, it’s quiet. As quiet as a city can get.

How does he feel?

“Warm, kinda sweaty, like I’ve swallowed a lot of bubbles. Probably, actually.” Jinyoung raises his flute of champagne and the glass shatters in the light, sparkling sweet, dry and swirling.

“I meant if you’re feeling okay. Comfortable?”

“I don’t think you can get very comfortable in a suit,” Jinyoung feels strangely lonely, talking, “But don’t worry. I’m okay.”

Jaebum pries his glass out of his hand, fingers cold, so cold, and sips his drink. His lips are pale, he notices, thin at the top and the bottom slightly chapped from the chilly air.

“That’s good. I got kind of concerned when you disappeared after only fifteen minutes.”

Jinyoung cringes to himself. It’s a little pathetic. The place was fine, fantastic, its wealth apparent in tabletops and windowshines, the glitter of dress, the drape of lace and silk; morning blue and entwined around a neck and curled upon an elbow, glinting from starched white cuffs. It was flutters of cloth and delicate things.

People laughed different, conversed different. Everything was careful and controlled, walking atop shells, and Jinyoung had felt afraid to even turn around, much less speak. It stifled him in ways he couldn’t touch. No face, no voice. Even with Jackson and Youngjae, Jinyoung had found himself slipping away.

Jinyoung rubs his thumb, “Sorry, hyung. I guess I really can’t get used to this.”

“It’s okay, I didn't expect you to be anything.”

And it does feel okay, with Jaebum looking at him like that. A little lost, bright eyes lingering on his, and completely complacent with the world around them. Accepting, solace sought, with the air asmoke with ash and the burn of gasoline from a drop far, far below. There’s another storm waiting in the air, shivering between the seconds, and things could be so simple right now had Jinyoung found a courage to search.

“I think Youngjae knows,” he says, “not specifically just, I know he’s worried.”

Jaebum sighs and runs a hand through his hair. He slouches forward over the railing, kicking the toe of his shoe between the gaps and Jinyoung feels his heartbeat quicken momentarily, fingers twitching to grab his arm. It’s impulsive, he brushes it away.

“Yeah, he’s been asking questions. So nosy,” he laughs.

Jinyoung nudges his elbow, “Maybe you should tell him. I think you should.”

“Will he even believe me?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

He sighs again, “Yeah, I know.”

“When are you leaving?”

Jaebum looks at him, looks away. The left side of his face is coated in sunset-red, “About a week from now.”

One week. That’s okay. Jinyoung can learn in a week, he can learn many, many things. Jaebum will, in a course of steady minutes and hours over the next few days, do simple things: he will buy a plane ticket, a few taps of his fingers to a keyboard, a digital receipt on his screen and not a second glance. He will pack slowly, not because he isn’t focused but because he’s too sentimental, treating every shirt he picks with a dedicated thought, meander through memorabilia and accidentally clean his room; look at his toothbrush curiously. He will, deceivingly, say a goodbye to his mother and if he can, his father, and if he cannot, instead leave a message with his secretary at the front desk.

And it will be something like this: _Sorry I’ve been distant for some time, I swear I haven’t forgotten about you two. I’m eating and sleeping well, so don’t worry about me._

And then, Jaebum would leave and someone else will come back.

Jinyoung can learn many things, and forgetting is but a harder one.

“You know, I still haven’t met your mom.” A thread of lightning wrinkles across the sky. A drop falls from the sky onto his nose, its clouds too heavy to bare.

Jaebum smiles then, as he always does about her, “That, I can fix.”

He takes his wrist then, leaving a pause to allow a rejection that never comes, and pulls him back towards warmth.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't you just feel it drawing to an end? makes me a little poignant. i made a few references to the first few chapters but those were so long ago im afraid to rereadd


	11. the one with the departure pt. one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beta'd by the gorgeously gifted zaf and prescil!!!!!!! (my writing goddesses)

She looks a lot like Jaebum or, more accurately, Jaebum looks a lot like her. It digs down physically to the soft chin and the short jaw that holds the thinness of their mouths, the fashion in which they smile with all teeth and no lips. Deeper still, with places Jinyoung’s eyes can’t wander and in words he can’t place, some things are woven more than in the ways faces are set. How Jaebum’s own bright gravity seemed to diverge from his mother’s.

It’s the eyes, he thinks. The way they disappear into pinches, cheeks rounding into soft, honeyed dough.

There are crystals in Mrs. Im’s ears, modest and embedded into silver. The gilded quality of her eyes get caught in chandeliers. Not stiff, not guarded, but the same speared perception Jinyoung has learned to become fond of.

“Mom,” Jaebum still has a hand around his wrist with a thumb on the shallow dip where the bone poked out, and his other arm makes its way round to his mother’s waist, scooching them towards another, “I’ve mentioned Jinyoung before.”

Recognition drops like a blanket, “Oh. Jinyoung! Yes, of course,” her eyes then drop briefly down. She keeps smiling.

Jaebum’s hold suddenly flares hot and cold, all pulse and the pressure of his skin against his engulfed in a hiss of ice. Jinyoung feels an inexplicit shame and pulls away, hiding his guilty arm behind his back and he reaches out instead with his other hand to shake. He ignores the glance of eyes stroking down his face in confusion and prays his palm isn’t as clammy as it feels, that his movement are as subtle as he wishes.

“I was beginning to wonder if Jaebum was hiding you from me,” Mrs. Im raises a neat eyebrow and accepts his hand. “He also seemed to forget to mention how handsome you are.”

Jaebum coughs into his fist. Jinyoung feels as flustered as a rainforest and a fog clings to his tongue.

“Okay, mom, that’s enough teasing.”

Mrs. Im places a bashful hand on her chest, eyes widening and she tilts her head at her son. “Teasing? Jaebum ah, you give me too much credit.”

Jinyoung finds himself amused at the pained look on Jaebum’s face as he avoids his eyes, as if he had swallowed vinegar and was trying to smile through the acid.

He turns his head then, and in the corner of his eyes he catches sight of something. Youngjae, beside a massive pot plant. Folding himself out of sight beneath its shadows as he tips his drink into the soil behind his back. With quick concern, he elbows Jaebum’s ribs, eyes darting to the corner and the second pair follows his gaze. Jaebum taps the small of his back, thankful almost.

Their eyes meet and their previous conversation circles between them. _Tell him_.

Jaebum places his drink on a passing waiter’s tray, “Sorry, I need to… find Youngjae.”

He can’t help but snort. Jaebum shoots him a look, dorky in the way his scrunched nose hides his eyes and his jaw goes crooked. He pinches his nape affectionately before striding off.

Jinyoung watches him go and his absence fills with the bubbles from his champagne, frothing hungrily in his gut with a strange feeling. He’s alone now, with a harmless looking woman that he’s certain could skewer him if she wished. His name filed under mysterious circumstances, dusty in a cabinet.

Not that she would, of course.

“This is just a peculiar little thing I’ve noticed but,” Mrs. Im runs a gaze over his face. Not unkind, but not kind either. “There’s something very cautious between you two.”

He purses his lips on the rim of his glass, tips it back in haste. It’s empty, he finds. “I don’t really get what you mean?” he hums and keeps his eyes trained on the bottom of his flute, feigning calm nervously as he swirled a bead of liquor around.

The most modest tilt of a chin catalyses his pulse. Pressure builds around him like dive into the deep end as he finds her expression unreadable. Could it be suspicion, distrust, the careful side-eye placed upon his shoulder? Or was it the absent curiosity of a doting parent, the critical eye of loftiness?

A wink from the chandeliers above, and the promise of a secret between lightless spaces. Mrs. Im relaxes and Jinyoung follows suit.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s just me and my old age. Seeing things that aren’t there,” she holds her cheek in her palm, elbow coming to perch on her arm wrapped around her waist. “He does look a little pale, though. I thought school was over?”

“He’s, uh, feeling a little under the weather. Sick.”

“He doesn’t sound very sick.”

He gnaws his bottom lip, “Not that kind,” he admits.

“Oh?” There’s surprise coloured in her voice and guilt pricks his throat.

“Of course,” he adds, “I wouldn’t know much about that, either.”

Mrs. Im smiles, a kind one, soft-hearted but alight with candle-stick curiosity. Wick burning, molten and flickering, “Of course.” she says.

 

 

 

“So, how was the Mrs?”

Bathrooms aren’t their most usual hangout location but Jaebum’s splashing water on his face, getting drops all over the sink and down into his shirt where it soaks through his collarbone and drips down his chest. He slaps his cheeks as if trying to wake up and shakes his head like a dog. Jinyoung hands him a complimentary face towel, it’s absurdly soft, and Jaebum blindly grabs it from his hand.

“Your _mom_ , you mean.”

Jaebum rolls his eyes as he pats his face dry, “Details.”

“She was very, very nice.”

“Overbearing?”

“I don’t think I’ve been force fed like that since my grandma came to visit last year.”

A nervous, mortified, charmed laugh, “She does that. Especially to the ones she likes.”

“I’m glad.”

The wall opposite of the stalls where the sink bench stood was solely a mirror. Jinyoung watched himself, themselves, how awkwardly he seemed to fit into his space and how naturally Jaebum melded into his. Him, in his stiffened shoulders and the cut of his clothing starched and unwilling to fold to his body, how there were crinkles where his hands were glued to his elbows. The wispy curls of untamed hair falling into his eyes. The persistent half-flush down his neck, a perpetual hot blush that came and went through his body like a balmy, humid night.

Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, even in the bathroom Jinyoung thinks bitterly, their cinnamon coloured light spilling out to cast grey, gaunt shadows down his face. Dulcet piano keys waft from hidden speakers. Bleached white marble reflecting. Their shoes squeaking.  

“I told Youngjae by the way.” Jaebum wrings the towel in his hands.

He almost misses a breath, “And?”

“He really does trust me too much,” Jaebum sighs and shrugs, “I mean, at first he was skeptical. Thought I was joking. But I think when I explained, he connected the dots. He’s noticed things too, he said. Still…”

“Still?”

“I don’t think he’ll believe it until he sees it, right?”

“It’s not a normal thing.”

“I don’t really want him to see it.”

“I know.”

Jaebum flings the towel back onto the rack and his knuckles catch against the metal, the rings on his fingers make an ugly sound and there’s a sigh. He glances up and startles himself with his reflection. Jinyoung wonders what he sees.

“You wanna get out of here?” He looks at him then, and the sad half-smile he bares is only half-warm. He’s asking out of politeness and Jinyoung thinks Jaebum should be selfish more, that there’s no need to care about him so much, whether in love or not.

“Let’s go home."

 

 

 

True to Jackson’s words, after Jaebum’s-mom’s-prissy-gala-party, he does indeed have something planned. Morning come and the brightness of last night was filtering into a dim lilac, soaking through the walls of his kitchen and coloured dots danced in his vision as he tried to adjust to the plain, _undazzlingness_ of real life. The window’s left open, as they always are when the dishes need to be washed.

Flimsy, Jinyoung’s busy lamenting the material of his gloves and his pruning fingers when the front door is flung open, followed by the busy sounds of shoes being kicked off, keys jangling and an unmistakeable cawing.

Jackson, gassed up on excitement and narrowly missing a startled Mark as he catapults onto the couch. He fizzes and crackles from ear to ear like he might burst through the seams if he doesn’t begin jabbering. He doesn’t bother to elaborate how he managed to get a key to their place.

“Okay, okay,” he nudges Mark upright with his knee and beckons Jinyoung to his side from the kitchen, “A drive from here, in a few days, there’s going to be something that’ll really, _really_ blow your ass off.”

“Wow,” Mark kicks him in the thigh with his foot, pushes him to the other end of the couch so he can breathe, “Can’t wait for my ass to get blown.”

Sugared up, Jackson shivers with his whole body, warbling through his teeth, and pulls out his phone. Mark’s eyes follow his tapping fingers.

Jinyoung snaps his gloves off and instead begins to dry, picking up a dish towel and a cup, his slight wariness slowing down his hands to a curious crawl with each inch he steps to the two. He peers down over Jackson’s shoulder. The search page is links and links of astronomical news and photos of pitch night skies splattered with -

“A meteor shower?”

“A meteor shower!” Jackson cheers.

“A meteor shower.” Mark parrots.

The front door rattles open again with the clink of mystery keys and shoes being kicked to the rack.

“A meteor shower,” Jaebum materialises from the ajar door, hanging his thin coat on the hallway rack and padding over.

A strange agitation swoops over Jinyoung when his eyes loop over the breeze-brushed hair he's trying to flatten down. Wispy strands feather his eyelids and curl behind his ear, the hair at the back is an inch away from patting his nape and Jinyoung wonders when he somehow missed this. All these small things.

Jaebum doesn’t quite meet his eyes but the brief smile that rests atop his thin lips is a half-hearted reassurance. He might be hiding almost, Jinyoung realises, turning cheek as he walks over so the sickly pink of his cheek is isolated to just the top of the apple.

Defiant, a skin-deep scratch of annoyance rubbed against Jinyoung - as if Jaebum _owed_ Jinyoung to tell him anything. But of course he doesn’t. Of course not. Jaebum belongs to no one - Jinyoung shuffles a half step away from him as he comes to stop by his side, leaning over to join the circle of eyes around Jackson’s screen. If he notices, Jinyoung can’t tell. That annoys him even deeper.

The solid in his hand slips a little around his palms, the skin there flushed and clammy as all the swirling, vicious winds in his stomach settle down into a mass of sediment. It’s bitter, like the dregs of tea. He felt disappointed for some reason. 

“So, I was thinking, we pack some shit and drive there in those ugly vans for families, and we spend the night just, I don’t know, looking at the sky and shit,” Jackson’s voice drifts back into his ears, “Romantic, right?” 

“This is your _ass-blowing_ plan?”

“ _Yes_. And the drive’s not _too_ long so that’ll be good fo - That’ll be good.”

The implications soak in his pause. There’s a rustle of fabric. It’s Jaebum stiffening, as if the unease of even a round-about by the topic shivered up his spine.  

“Can’t sit still, can you?” Mark sounds amused as he usually is about everything, and looks to Jinyoung. He raises an eyebrow, amused again.

“I think the cup’s dry enough.”

He starts quietly, feels a small rush as if being pulled out a pool - a breath of air, chokingly clear and shivering to inhale - and he drops the cup. Pieces of porcelain splatter at his foot, white gashes splintering outwards onto the wood. There’s a brief crinkle like chimes.

“Oh,” he looks down, “Oh shit.”

He moves to step out but something solid blocks him. A pair of hands, indiscreetly Jaebum’s. He can tell from the roughness, those graceless short fingers and wide palms, grip his forearms from the back and stills. Their hold is weak, but it burns.

“Don’t move, you might step on something,” and all the pressure deflates, his hands leaving as Jaebum moves over to their kitchen with Mark, in search for a dustpan hidden behind a dusty cupboard.

Jackson’s looking at him, “You okay?” he asks, eyebrows piqued, excitement diluted into concern.

“Yeah,” he shakes his head, feels like there’s wind surf swirling around his skull. Empty and wide and trying to press out of his containment, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“What was that?”

Sitting beside his feet, Jinyoung thinks about lifting a heel and piercing his skin on a hooked tooth. He’s spacing out again. He wrings the cloth in his hands, still damp.

“It’s nothing,” he answers.

 

 

 

“Jinyoung?” Mark rounds into the kitchen where Jinyoung's by the sink, drying again. The heating’s off to save on the bills and dusts of frost are breathed onto the window corners; Mark’s drawn his sleeves past his fingers and his hood over his head and he looks like he could melt into the fabric. He lingers at the doorway, ghosting.

Humming, Jinyoung towels off a blue striped mug and frowns at the fading colours.

“You know I’ve known you for a long time.”

He puts down the mug, picks up a plate. This one has little tangerines arranged in parallels, like small orange suns, running across snow. “What are you trying to say, hyung?”

“You’ve been weird lately,” he hears Mark move, socks slipping against tile, “I don’t know, but you’ve been off.”

The mattress of his palms are pruny and stripped dry from the detergent. They’ll crack in cold, but someone has to wash the dishes. He’ll learn to deal with it. He just needs time.

“Jinyoungie?”

Mark has known him for a long time. The faint image of him of their first, naive days: skin tanned in shades of California, lingers of sand crusts and sea foam, a cool chlorine following him like pool waves against ankles. It was all foggy to Jinyoung. All steam on a mirror he couldn’t wipe away.  Mark was lanky arms strung together in thin muscles and those spindly, chopstick legs that held up his small body, his small face, still awkwardly attached to a then too prominent aquiline nose. Mark, years younger sitting in the back porch of his memory, with a duffel under his arm, a bag on his back, a bronze sheen to his stilted introduction and no other worldly possessions to give.

He wants to tell him. Wants the solace of arms around his own, an ear to listen, a heart to burden. To pass a portion over, so Jinyoung doesn’t have to swallow everything on his own.

Instead, he laughs. A wry little sound crawling out of the woodwork. “You’re thinking too much, hyung.”

 

 

 

In passing, there are questions asked and questions that are not.

How Jackson obtains a van, a dumpy faded blue thing with enough room to raise a family of dogs, and looking like it has, is one of the unasked. It doesn’t matter though, when the vehicle rolls to his apartment complex, a little on the creaky side of a local morning menace, and Jinyoung hears Mark stifling his squeaky giggles.

Milky light fades everything into a lukewarm tea. It collects like against the grinning stretch of Jackson’s face and the humbled but mortified one of Jaebum’s. Winding up from the road to his street, up the stairs and into the narrowed box in his heart.

“Get in losers,” Jackson hisses, elbow out the window and the fringe beneath his cap tussled by the breeze. Youngjae snorts himself awake in the backseat, “We’re going star gazing.”

 

 

 

There is a carefully considered driving plan. Careful, because out of the five of them, Jaebum only knows how three people, him inclusive, drive. It’s in the order of him, then Jackson when he doesn’t get distracted by something in the rearview mirror, then Youngjae. A no-go-zone, he firmly puts down from the passenger's seat. The younger whines, but doesn’t disagree.

But, since technically ( _technically_ ) Jackson’s the one who rented the van, he should, he argues, be responsible for anything that happens to it. Scratch or no scratch, deaths or no deaths, he’s the one who has to pay the fees. The logic is flawed but not untrue, and Jaebum, not enough of a morning person to banter, drops the keys into his spread palms, grumbling.

Despite the tire dressed on his face, he insists he’ll take over after. It’s not up for argument when he then plugs in his earphones, a smooth tinny sound sliding out, and settles into the groove of his window to sleep.

Jinyoung doesn’t miss the look Jackson shoots him from the rearview.

With all the expectations pointing to another, Jackson _is_ a driver with safe hands. The transition of morning to midday is uneventful along the roll of their wheels and Jinyoung is undisturbed with Mark’s bones digging into his flesh and the impatient building of traffic behind the soft putter of the engine.

Admittedly there are distractions. When Youngjae screams from the sudden dip of a pothole, Jackson swerves a screeching left and Youngjae doesn't stop yelling.

All is forgiven on the side of a highway, the youngest of them rubbing soothing circles on his hyung’s back as Jackson inhales through his mouth.

There’s an unspoken agreement for a quick break on the side of the road. Jackson’s by the van, Jaebum having taken the next shift of backside patting.  

“Youngjae…” Jinyoung sits down beside his dongsaeng on the curb of the highway, where the emergency stop lane merged with the tough weeds and dandelions of the roadside fields.

Youngjae rubs his neck and laughs weakly, abashed. “Sorry about this, hyung,” his hand falls down to his knees and he looks down at the grass tickling him, “I dreamt that I was falling, and when I woke up I _was_.” he laughs again.

“Do you usually have nightmares?”

“It’s kind of pathetic.”

Jinyoung slaps his arm.

“Yah!” the boy recoils and rubs his arm, betrayed, “Hyung, what was that for?”

“You know perfectly what,” he doesn’t mean to sound so scolding and he softens, sighing something tiny, and reaches out to take Youngjae’s slapped arm into his lap. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

Youngjae squeezes his face together, tasting something shamefully sour, but relents anyway. “I’m kind of. Weird. I feel weird. I’ve been stressed or worried or whatever, I think that’s why I’m sleeping so bad,” Jinyoung doesn’t miss the way his eyes land on Jaebum, who’s fishing out a water bottle loudly from the back of the van, before flicking back down to the warm concrete beneath his shoes, “You know about Jaebum hyung’s...Thing. Jackson was the first, he’s Jaebum’s closest friend. And you know, because, well…”

_It’s his fault_ , he won’t say.

“I feel like crap. Which is selfish, I am selfish. I’m mad that hyung didn’t tell me sooner, that he - that he didn’t trust me or something. Which is stupid because he doesn’t _have to_ tell me and Jaebum hyung is the one who’s sick, and the one who’s suffering the most out of all of us. And maybe he was afraid to tell me because, I don’t know, I’m still finding it hard to believe. All of this. You’ve seen it happen, right?”

Youngjae swivels around to bare his wide eyes into his and he looks so lost, so unsure, his eyebrows all knotted into a worried crease and his jaw tight with grinding out every inch of confession. “It’s real, right? I knew, I felt like hyung’s been weird for a while, but I wouldn’t think it was...All this. I don’t know.”

Jinyoung feels something in his lap shift and he looks down to see Youngjae’s hand, tightened in a fist in his hold. Pity and sadness swallow him. He cups it gently in his own fingers and pries it open, relaxing the stiff muscles and skin with massaging strokes and he tips his head down, trying to look up to the other’s fallen face. 

“Youngjae, if you think you’re being selfish, then ask yourself why shouldn’t you be?” he interlaces their fingers together and smiles at the questioning look he’s given, “Jaebum hyung’s like your brother, right? You care about him, and he cares about you. But he didn’t tell you something that’s very important. What hyung has is...is something serious. It’s affecting him a lot and it has for a long time, and because of that it’ll affect you too and all of us, together, because we’re all his friends. So you’re not selfish, Youngjae. It’s more than just Jaebum hyung, it’s you too.”

And then he places his other hand atop their intertwined pair and shakes it up and down a little, smiling gently. Youngjae hums, nodding more to himself than him, and sighs through his nose.

“Thanks, Jinyoung hyung,” he smiles with a little twitch of his lips, pensive still, “I’ll...yeah. Thanks.”

 

 

 

They make break at a diner. It’s halfway stuck between an afternoon in the 1960s with dusty window corners fogged over with cobwebs, vinyl seats scratched and poorly stitched back together with duct tape, and a murky aroma of sawdust coffee. A dead television watches from a perch. There’s no other cars in the parking as they pull up. A waitress in a low ponytail, popping stale gum between her lips, watches them through the windows from behind her counter.

Jaebum’s back cracks when he stretches, his arms pulled up skywards as he groans from outside the van and Jinyoung slides open his door. It’s grey outside, the sky pulled close to the horizon in dark, swollen balloons, a palm pressing flat down with the air condensed beneath its skin.

“If it’s like this tonight, we won’t be able to see anything.” The door clicks shut behind Jinyoung as he steps down beside him. Jaebum moves awkwardly aside, his legs numb, and struggles for a second to stand upright before deciding to just lean against the vehicle for support.

“It’ll clear up, don’t worry,”

Beads of sweat trickles down his brow and Jinyoung wipes it away with his sleeve. Jaebum grumbles and ducks. Jinyoung chuckles and crosses his arm.

“Okay, weatherman.”

“Trust me, I just know.”

From the corner of his eyes he sees Mark ushering Jackson and Youngjae inside the building, them laughing about something as the doorbell tinkles close behind them. He and Jaebum don’t move. Instead, they watch the traffic bullet by.

“The only one who doesn’t know now is Mark.”

Jaebum glances at him, glances away, and then turns to look back again, surprised. Jinyoung’s not sure exactly where it came from but he just listens, eyelids halfway down, to the pierce of metal through the air and the thunder of concrete before them. He waits for an answer.

“Don’t take this the wrong way but, from the way Mark looks at me, I think he kinda already knows. Something, at least.”

It’s Jinyoung’s turn to raise a brow, “The way he looks at you?”

“The way he looks at me,” Jaebum closes his eyes, tired, and nods sagely, “With big, fat, moony eyes. He’s totally infatuated with this handsome, eligible bachelor.” He sweeps his hand down his sweater-and-jeans. He’s wearing ripped denim again, enticing flashes of skin bleeding down from his thighs to his knees. Stupid.

“Don’t be dumb,” Jinyoung moves ahead, rolling his eyes, “and come on, the others will order before us.”

“Okay, just -” Jinyoung hears a struggled inhale and he twists back around. There’s a feverish sweat on Jaebum’s forehead and his are eyes unfocused. Glassy, almost. His step is awkward, he just might teeter.

Jinyoung, alarmed, rushes to grab his arm. He’s brushed away with a hand.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” Jinyoung wants to bark a frustrated _clearly not,_ “And tell the others that it’s okay if they do. Order first.” He pushes himself off the van, lurching into a momentary gait before striding off, determined. He won’t look back at him.

Jinyoung finds it so stupid, staring at his back once more with a low pit simmering in his gut. It feels like helplessness, annoyance. There’s no need to hide right in front of him, Jaebum should know that.

The diner door closes again, bell laughing down at his face and a hundred blurry colours, speeding down behind him on a lonely, grey road.

 

 

 

Pancakes eaten in the afternoon are syrupy sweet and aching to the tooth. They sit uncomfortably at the bottom of Jinyoung’s stomach, churning in jam and powdered sugar, squeezed mulberry juices so deeply red it was purple. A worriedness armed with shovels digs into him as he tries not to watch Jaebum, sitting across to Youngjae’s left, fingers bare of crumbs and sticky fruit and grasped around the porcelain of watery coffee.

 

 

 

Jaebum drives next. Even in his state, with a heaviness weighed in his eyes that Jinyoung can see him lifting with each blink, and clutched white fingers, all of the little signs that follow his gaze whenever he looks away. He’s never felt so awake, waiting for someone to fall asleep.

Jinyoung does, however, learn to know why Jaebum feels safer in control.  

They stop by briefly at a field. It’s knotted with weeds and upturned roots but yellow wildflowers dot down to the furthest distance, beyond the scope of the horizon. The mountains are in view, rippling in curved edges and misting at the very top beside a darkening sky. There’s not far to go. They won’t go all the way to the top, Jackson had said, not unless they wanted to become a teenage-appropriate horror flick. That, or another precautionary tale of how not to be stupid and young.

Jaebum wipes his mouth on his sleeve and breathes in all the cold air that can fill his lungs. The rest of them try not to watch.

If he’s embarrassed, then Jinyoung's not the only one who can tell. He slides open the back door where he and Mark are sitting, looking smaller, overwhelmed and something trembles and shakes in Jinyoung’s chest. He feels it like teacups in an earthquake, unstable on their shelves, spilling everywhere.

“Hey, can you take over?” Jinyoung starts, thinking it's him, but Jaebum’s gaze goes past towards Mark.

Mark nods, unbuckles his seatbelt, and maneuvers around Jinyoung's legs. The explanation he deserves is a thick, suffocating solid in the space he leaves.

The drive is quiet and tense. No one really knows what to say nor whether there is anything to say at all and Jinyoung, with Jaebum’s shoulder squished against his and Youngjae’s, finds it more smothering than awkward.

Wanting to comfort, he places a hand on Jaebum’s knee. He’s not sure what expression his face is contorted into, he can’t seem to find his footing on what he feels, but the morose sadness in Jaebum’s, all those wants and needs and wishes, the way he can trace his eyes tracing his, makes his chest tight.

Jaebum doesn’t look at him for long. He breaks away, schooling himself. Jinyoung doesn't move his hand for the rest of the ride.

 

 

 

By the time Mark cuts the engine off, the clouds had sunk into a heavy purple and begun pooling around the small red dot of the sun like water swirling into a drain. It's still frighteningly cold, even at this time in the year, the sun still setting early and rising late. Jackson somersaults out the passenger side and stretches, yawning obnoxiously into the silence. Mark kicks his shins.

The trees rustle, the grass tickles and their city is a distant blink in the darkness below. All the tension seems to simmer away into the moment.

Jinyoung unbuckles his seatbelt and slides open his door but stays sitting, instead just swinging his cramped legs out to the side. They’ve parked at some viewpoint at a cliffside. Brittle, bent wiring fences off the the steep fall of loose boulder and shrubbery to one edge and at the other is the dense opening to mountain woodlands. Thick in trunks and branches, the canopy flutters upwards in a blanket of inky green. A weathered, once-green picnic table sits at a corner beside a tap stuck into the ground and a rusting _NO LITTERING_ sign.

The stars have begun to come out, faint freckles of light peeking out from the blue. It's blinding to Jinyoung, comparing it to the flat blackness he watches through his apartment window every night.

A rustling stirs behind him. Youngjae’s head had fallen onto Jaebum’s shoulder sometime during the ride and the both of them are dead to the world. The soft pink of the younger’s hood falls over his face and Jaebum’s chin nods down uncomfortably to his chest. Cute, he thinks, insufferably so. But bad for their necks.

Jinyoung shakes their shoulders, “We’re here you two, come on,” he sing songs.

An ugly grunt. Two pairs of eyes blink slowly open.    

“Good morning, hyung,” Youngjae mumbles. The corner of his mouth is sticky with drool and he twists himself further into a ball, “why is it so dark?”

Half awake, Jaebum snorts. Smiling with hooded eyes and creases in his sweatshirt, he shares a look with him. Jinyoung is too fond of them both.

 

 

 

Jackson and Youngjae insist on a campfire. They argue valiantly, all arm movements and hand shaking with voices booming to the heavens as the pinnacle of their persuasion crescendos, they point out it would be absolutely _unlawful_ and _sacrilege to the good God given name of camping_ if there wasn't an open fire to crowd around.

“Like, smores and shit and lame creepy stories. It's a rite of _passage_. The camping gods are expecting of us.”

“The  _camping gods_.” Youngjae, grave, nods.

As biting as the temperature had dropped, Jinyoung isn't dumb enough to think that the plausibility of a fire would lead to more good, peaceful and uneventful outcomes than bad. Like, forest fire bad.

His foot is firm on the ground.

“No fire whatsoever. No flames, no sparks, if I even see you trying to pretend you can spontaneously combust I’ll lock you two in the van.”

“But it's freezing, my hands are gonna fall off and I need them for everything. Eating, writing, videogames, a wank in the shower, _everything_.”

Jinyoung does what’s best for all of them and ignores what he’d just heard, “I’m not trusting a group of five college-aged guys with an open flame.”

Youngjae, the snitch, turns around to his source of hope, currently busy digging out supplies from the van trunk and cradling a torch in the crook of his neck with a pile of blankets in his arms. Jinyoung knows he’s in for a struggle when he sees Youngjae’s widest, puppy eyes mode switch on, “Hyuuung.”

Jaebum’s already trying not laugh, “Yes, Youngjae?” he huffs.

“Jinyoung hyung won't let us make a fire.”

“Yeah! Jinyoungie’s fireblocking us. Get it, like cockbl--”

“We get it, Jackson.”

The torch slips out from under Jaebum’s jaw and it clatters noisily on the dirt. It casts a ghostly shadow of his silhouette, stretching him out towards them, “Tell _Jinyoungie_ that I have a solution.”

Jinyoung blushes in the dark. Jaebum never calls him pet names.

Their youngest giggles with triumph, “ _Jinyoungie_ , Jaebum hyung has --”

“I have ears, Youngjae,” he snaps, but not really.

There’s the rustle of plastic behind him, the whisper-soft crunch of sneakers against grass and a gleeful snicker of marshmallow dust being blown into Mark’s face. The eerie shadow of Jaebum touches him. Like phantom limbs, Jinyoung feels their imaginary pressure of his skin against his. On his nape at the bump of his spine where his shoulders ended, around his wrist with a thumb curved along his bone, an air weight brush of accidental fingers, jumping like red embers in his hold.  

Half of Jaebum’s torso is hidden from view as he digs through the trunk, clanging and shuffling and shifting things aside. Jinyoung’s about to go and help him when there’s a triumphant _aha_ and Jaebum emerges, a flush of light illuminating his face in a warm, rosy orange.

“This,” he dangles the lantern around, “is our compromise.”

He walks over and settles it down in the middle of a springier, denser patch of grass before dropping his armful of blankets atop the large picnic one laid out half-assed beside it.

“Technically,” Mark’s left cheek is thick with sweets as he chews, “there _is_ a fire.”

Jackson falls onto his butt on the blanket and leans out, stretching his arms and sighing contently, “It’s win-win. Or lose-lose if you’re into that. Right, Jinyoung?”

The lamp is fine, a good solution if any. But Jinyoung can’t let the smallest things rest without a say, “If we drove all the way here just to die in a fire, I’m never going camping again.” He sits down beside him, though.

“At least you’ll get to say I told you so.”

Jaebum lies down beside Jinyoung, “The entire point we dragged ourselves out here wasn’t so you two can fight about this.”

“What was, anyway?” Mark asks from the other side, dragging a Youngjae down next to him.

Jinyoung can feel Jackson’s grin through the air, “To create beautiful and whimsical memories of our youth?”

Jaebum shifts. Jinyoung barely catches it in the half light, but he sees it still. Their eyes meet - something strange - and break apart.    

“No, dumbass. To celebrate the end of exams.” Mark snorts.

“Ah, _youth_.”     

Jaebum yawns, arching his back and pulling his arms in a stretch above his head. He looks like a cat, paws out and eyes squeezed shut, content to simmer in the weak sunlight. “Didn’t think I’d be spending the prime of my life with my ass in the dirt and getting bitten by mosquitos.”

Mark dusts the sugar off his hands, “What did you have in mind? Yacht parties and helicopter rides, sipping cognac out of golden vases?”

Youngjae’s laughter bursts and Jackson reaches over to slap Jaebum’s thigh, “Our Jaebum hyung is too simple of a man now!!”

“I think I’m supposed to be offended.”

“I meant, like, you’re a decent guy. A good guy. A jolly good fellow guy.”

“Jaebum hyung is simple-hearted now. He likes simple things.” Youngjae joins.

“There’s complexities in simpleness.”

“Jinyoung, shut up.” Mark pinches.

He sticks his tongue out.

“Guys, seriously!” Jackson throws his arms into the air, “Jaebum hyung’s like… like our _centre_.”

“Jackson, shut up.”

“Shhh! Listen. We know Youngjae because Youngjae knows Jaebum hyung, we know me because I know hyung, and we know Jinyoungie because Jinyoungie knows hyung too. We’re all here because of Jaebum. He’s like our centre. The common factor of our _lives_.”

The pain on Jaebum’s mortified face, scrunched awfully into itself, is torn between asking to be swallowed by the earth and blushing ten shades of bashfulness. He’s trying not to laugh. Still, the peaks of lips are reaching for his eyes, fighting the crescenting off his face and he forces himself to hide behind his hands when Jackson doesn’t stop.

All the gushing and teasing, cooing noises. Jinyoung finds it all endearing to watch and joins in, pinching Jaebum in his side and smiling down at him as he shrinks, shying away from their voices and tugging his hood over his head. His teeth are bare, flashed into a grin, and he zips his parka up to his nose.

It’s unbearable. Jinyoung finds his hand and grasps it. He can’t find anything to say.

“What about me? Don’t you guys know me through Jinyoung?”

“Damn it, Mark!” There’s a brief tussle, a high pitched squeal.

“You’re just a result of Jinyoung knowing Jaebum!”

Jaebum’s body rocks with his own laughter and he unzips his mouth free. The glow is warm from the lamp and a gold bronzes his mouth and nose against thick, bold shadows. He looks haunting, just teeth and pointed slopes and the flicker of his outline coalesced with the darkness like the fabric of spirits and ghosts. But he also looks so, so lovely, and he is so, so real. So very much beside him. So very much solid in warmth and skin, limbs that trace memories across Jinyoung’s as if unravelling.

Jaebum squeezes his hand back.

“How did I ever end up with you guys,” his voice is breathy and he leans his head down to where he’s pulled his knees to his chest, turning his neck as to face him. There’s kindling in his eyes. Small branches, little leaves, crinkling with heat that puff sparks across Jinyoung's eyes and the bow of his lips, the inside of his elbow where his skin was thin to everything that made him weak.

He’s compelled. There’s a thought lingering inside, small but swirling, like a stone rolling with the earth. Compelled for _something_.

“You’re asking the wrong question, hyung.” he answers back. It’s just the two of them now. The others have seemed to fade away into their own loud, rolling, banter.

“I’m not looking for any answers, though,” Jaebum looks up, his hood falling back completely to let his hair be fussed by the wind, “I’m okay with what I have. I’m learning.”

“Learning to let go?” His thumb is traces nervous circles from where they’re still joined.

Jaebum shakes his head, “Learning to hold on.”

A star, a fleck of salt in the sky, falls. It dissolves away before Jinyoung can realise, and he breathes in.

“It’s starting.”

It rains white. Like threads of light sewn with small, silver needles and quick, agile hands. Everyone’s quiet now. Watching it fall away.

“Hey,” Jaebum’s hand slips away from his hold and he’s calling out to everyone, “I need to tell you guys something.”

Everyone turns, listening. Jinyoung thinks they all know judging by the sombred lines of their mouths and the heavy set of shadows encircling them all. Even Mark, with his uncanny ability to be aware of the unaware.

“I’m flying out tomorrow. For a few days.”

Three streaks of white dash past Jinyoung as he turns his head suddenly, “Tomorrow?”

There’s guilt on Jaebum’s face even as he keeps his face skywards, “Yeah, my flight is tomorrow night.”

A pressure swells in his chest. Tomorrow is only a few hours away, a few steps away from where they are.

“A week at most, I guess. I’ll write myself a note.” Jaebum chuckles dryly at that.

They’re all quiet, there’s nothing to say. The mood had turned for the worst. They all knew, one way or another, details or not, that there’d been little, squirming things chewing holes through Jaebum’s head, his body.

Jinyoung knew. That it would come to this, he wanted it to come to this. Just, not so soon. Not so quickly.

Mark is more silent than ever, but he holds his place as the reluctant outsider with a bravery in his ignorance stronger than the rest of them. “Come back soon, Jaebum.” It doesn’t sound like goodbye.

A pool of fear wells up within Jinyoung. The meteorite shower begins to thin. Streaks weaker as the last wave tails behind. Then they’re gone, like snow snatched by the Spring sun, melted. Jaebum, the one he knows - _his_ , in a selfish thought - will be gone tomorrow.

He looks at him. It’s a simple sight. Jaebum as Jaebum, a shade sicker and his cheeks sharper, but Jaebum nevertheless. There’s something liquid about him, how he so easily slips out of cupped palms, like he was never his to hold and that if he were reach out, he’d break the illusion and see his fingers touching ripples.

“Yeah, hyung,” Youngjae’s pitiful smile is at the ground, “We’ll all be waiting.”

It’s fleeting, this moment. If Jinyoung were to try and catch it, it’d disappear like a star.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so.......this chapter got too big (classic me and my bad planning skills). ive been caught up in the busiest year of my short ass life and im ! TT-TT there are not enough sorrys in this world sobs.. thank u sososo much to everyone whos still stuck around with my dumb ass
> 
> u can yell at me on twit (@jjpsthighs) or the tumbl (7cm)


	12. the one with the departure pt. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> major hearts and thanks to zaf and prescil for betaing, and for everyone who's stuck around to read this still!!! its the last chapter....finally....love u all

The ground beneath is hard and cold. The dried grass itches Jinyoung through the fabric of his sleeping bag and the hidden crickets are no quieter than Youngjae’s snoring. Their chirps are distant but distinct, enveloping the group of them in a protected case of a calm, frigid Spring. But it’s more than that waking Jinyoung up. It’s paradoxical guilt. The whole sky, layers and layers of thin, pale airy blankets, sit atop his chest.

The first time he wakes, his eyelids had creaked open only a millimeter. He had made out through the slits Youngjae’s face pillowed into his sleeping bag, ready to cocoon. He had reached a hand out into the cold air to wipe the drool at the  corner of his mouth, wishing he wouldn’t breathe so loudly. 

The second time, his eyes fluttered open to the opposite side to see Jaebum’s own sleeping bag, pointedly devoid of its Jaebum. He panicked, befuddled and drunk with sleep, wrangled in a post-somnus haze of incomprehensible logic and conclusions that something really bad had happened. He had struggled to sit up, kicking out his legs from where they’d been caught in the material, breath coming out loud and sharp. Jaebum had appeared at his side then, hurriedly with his eyes wide at the sight of him, and Jinyoung’s thumping pulse immediately calmed, slight embarrassment washing over him when he looked up at him. He had emerged from the shadows into their moonlit patch as if melded from the air, and the question of where he had been, what he had been doing, only flitted through Jinyoung’s thoughts beneath the churning relief. Crickets chirped from the grass. The wind stirred. Their city blinked from afar. 

Jaebum had taken one look as his rounded eyes and laughed, then moving to climb back into his sleeping bag. His cheek was hidden by the plush of a pillow and his hair fanned limply across his forehead. An eyebrow was raised at him, cheeky. 

_ Go to sleep,  _ Jaebum mouthed, and he turned to face away from him. 

Jinyoung was glad for the darkness, his blush cloaked. 

Again now, for the third time, when Jinyoung opens his eyes, it’s the approach of dawn he sees with its light ready to dye the sky. Clouds, wet with blue and a calm night retreating to the West. The crispness of the wind tucking around the back of his neck. 

He tilts his head to the right and finds himself unsurprised to see Jaebum lying on his back too. Light collects in the folds on his clothes and in the strands of his hair, he looked unnaturally serene in his stillness with the vacant gaze of his eyes. His arms, out of his sleeping bag, are raised with goosebumps. Jinyoung slides his hand out from beneath his pillow and pokes Jaebum in his side. 

He finds his form doesn’t flicker when he touches him. No ghosts, no apparitions, no shapeless dreams fleeing into the running night. Still here, his Jaebum. 

“Hey,” he says.

A quiet smile greets him when Jaebum turns around, his voice pleasantly hoarse, “Hey.” 

Whilst the others sleep dead to the world and to the two of them, they brush their teeth to the chitter of the morning birds. The old wood of the picnic benches they’re sitting on scratch against their thighs and Jinyoung’s eyes threaten to fall shut. Waking up twice with the ache in his back kept whatever sleep he found light and weak, and his gaze waters with a suppressed yawn at the thin strip of yellow ribbon lining the horizon, the greyness around them growing brighter. 

Jaebum spits into the drain, turns off the leaky tap, and wipes his mouth onto his sleeve. 

“That’s disgusting,” Jinyoung mumbles through the foam in his mouth. 

Jaebum slips on a thick jacket, the black one with the dumb Simpsons character on it, and he snorts at the whiteness collecting in the crease of Jinyoung’s lips, “You’ve seen worse.” 

“Unfortunately.”

“Now hurry up, there’s somewhere I want to go.”

Jinyoung grunts into his toothbrush and closes his eyes. 

_ Somewhere  _ is into the woods where the trees grow sparser and the dirt crunches loud beneath their shoes. The campgrounds stay in sight behind them, their dingy van a great, powder blue hunk of metal haloed by pale light. It shines ominously angelic like some guardian watching over their friends. 

Jaebum’s steps don’t falter as he follows confidently along an invisible pathway to their destination. He rounds along a cluster of boulders with his fingers outstretched, brushing against the gritty surface as if reassuring himself he was going the right way, and he turns his head a fraction to catch Jinyoung’s eye. He wonders how Jaebum seems to even know the area. 

Last night, probably. When he saw him out of his bag. 

Huh. Jinyoung had had feeling all along that Jaebum was barely sleeping properly. The bruises beneath his eyes have become permanently stained, his voice scratchier than bark, all these details bleeding into an oversaturated picture. 

Under the canopy and between the trees, as they trek silently up a shallow incline, Jinyoung began to feel like he was missing something. Something important. 

“When is your flight?”

Jaebum startles, pulled from his own thoughts. He turns round to face him, eyes wide as if in headlights, and he takes a moment to collect himself before turning away once more. 

“Nighttime, not too late. ” His voice floats back to him.

Jinyoung nods, looking down. It’ll be harder to sleep tonight, knowing that. 

“It’ll be a pain in the butt to meet you again. What if you hate me?” the humour of his half-assed joke gets lost somewhere between his throat and his voice and it comes out strained and awkward.

Jaebum plays along, “I just might, you know. I didn’t have a problem with that the first time.” 

A laugh. 

“I’ll say you’re indebted to me. I’ll make you treat me a hundred times over.”

“My poor wallet.”

“ _ My _ poor wallet,” Jinyoung sniffs. His nose is numb and icy to the touch and he chuckles, burying his face into his jacket collar. The soil loosens beneath his soles the further he steps until he realises that Jaebum’s no longer by his side but ahead of him, scaling up a hill that they’ve met. 

Maybe it’s because he can’t see his face, that it’s his back facing him, broad and strong and a sight he’s perhaps too resigned to seeing, that makes something anxious hitch in Jinyoung’s breath. Jaebum’s always walking away from him. Angry at campus, confused at home, in love behind closed doors and saddened beneath the tarp of an umbrella, underneath sheets of rain. It might be courage that hits him. It might be fear. But regardless, this Jaebum won’t be coming back to him.

“I’ll miss you.” Like walking out the door in the midst of a snowstorm, all the heat rushes to his cheeks, ready to melt from his face. 

Jaebum stops and peers back from his shoulder, expression nonplussed. 

“I won’t be gone for long. A week at most.”

Jinyoung shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to unravel his knots into words. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, I’ll...I’ll think about  _ this  _ you. The one standing right here.”

The woods drip into light around them. Shadows of foliage dapper across their shoulders, the trees wakening with gentle stirring winds. Purple light burns pink in the sky and Jinyoung knows Jaebum understands, that he’s not the only one who’s been turning the same pages of thoughts over and over. 

Jinyoung fiddles with his hands, stuttering, “And, and I  _ know  _ that you’re still you. That you’ll still be you. But, when you come back you’ll be someone who existed without me, and I know I sound selfish but. Maybe I don’t want that. Yet, I know that I can’t let that happen.”

“Jinyoung ah,” there's a small, forced smile in his voice “you’re being so vague.”

“That’s how I feel.”

That makes Jaebum chuckle. He turns his body around and steps down towards him, “Come on, let’s keep walking,” his hand is taken gently, “You can keep talking. You’re usually so repressed, so I want to hear it.”

Jinyoung shakes his head again.  

“I’m being dumb, nevermind.” 

“We all have our moments.”

Jinyoung licks his bottom lip.  _ Ah, what the heck _ , he thinks to himself, “What if you come back and you won’t like me?”

Jinyoung tries not to feel hurt at the snort he gets in response, “And why would you think that?” Jaebum won’t show his face. 

“I don’t know. Am I afraid?”

“That’s okay. I’m scared too.”

Jinyoung blinks, eyelids fluttering. His mouth parts into a little crack and he walks faster to come shoulder to shoulder with the other man, “What if you come back and you’re so different  _ I  _ don’t like you? What if I treat you differently, and you wouldn’t even be able to tell because you won’t - you won’t know any better? I don’t want it to be like that,” he knows he sounds stupid. Childish. Asking questions with undisclosed answers. He sighs and softly, when the grip round his hand is so tight it hurts, “But I know you can’t answer that.”

Jaebum still hasn’t turned around to look at him and Jinyoung feels a twinge of irritation, a  _ hey, are you even hearing this  _ on the tip of his tongue. It's stolen though, when they suddenly come to a stop. 

It’s quiet around. The birds silenced, grass stalks pliant in the wind, and he finds the two of them atop a grassy hilltop, the sun caught between the dividing horizon and an expanding westward blur. A cool lilac tailed by layers of blue and grey. 

Captured, Jinyoung lets himself be pulled by a lowering Jaebum to sit down. 

Jaebum tucks their connected hands into his coat pocket, “Next time there’s a shower, we should watch it from here instead.”

He rubs his eyes then, painfully red from exhaustion, and hums something short and content, legs splayed out against the cold earth as if not a worry in the world. Jinyoung pulls his knees to his chest, not minding how his hand, deep in Jaebum’s pocket and clasped around his short fingers, are almost uncomfortably clammy. He feels calmer then, basking in Jaebum’s mute reassurance.

“You want to know what I’m seeing right now?” 

Jinyoung nods,  _ of course  _ he wants to say. Instead, he exhales, breath curling away into the sky. 

Jaebum hums again, “A lot of flowers. Everywhere. All the way and past the trees and out to the campsite. Probably says something about how far gone I am, huh?” He seems amused by this, blinking slowly and blindly.

“It’s like your entire shop out here. Asters and daisies and everything. It’s pretty actually, I’m almost sad you can’t see this. And it’s so real, too. Every detail, like petals and veins and all the light and shadows, how it moves in the wind. They’re so real.

But then, as pretty as they are, what’s the point if it’s only me? If this makes any sense, what I want to say is that I’d rather have the real thing than fool myself. That this disease is making me someone else, yet it’s also apart of me now. It’s literally in me,” he laughs at himself, “So I’ll have to take it out, but it won’t be that bad. Because I can just grow it back later.”

The smile that Jinyoung feels stretching on his face is weak, “Jaebum hyung, you’re being vague.”

He feels his hand and his stomach squeezed and Jaebum shuts his eyes when he smiles, a full grin, resigned yet seemingly, to Jinyoung, happy too. “Yeah, okay, okay. I’ll be blunt, sorry,” he sighs again. His breath leaves his lips as a fog and it presses against the morning light, “You’re not selfish, Jinyoung. I put you in this situation and it’s been nothing but my doing and I’m sorry for that. I don’t know if this makes you feel any better but, I’m coming back as me, as me as I can get. And, uh, you’ll always be someone I care for, you know? You’re my friend, above all. You’ll remember that even when I won’t. And I will be coming back, so don’t feel sad.”

Jaebum rubs his nose and he can’t seem to look up, a blush dying on his throat. 

There are a lot of things, all these emotions that Jinyoung has had to go through. At times they were so insufferably cloying, he felt himself wading and grasping and just bearing through like quick sand. Yet, looking back, the past months have been so colourful, so vibrant and catastrophic with this supple life of its own, that its wake lingers even now upon this hill with him. 

As strange as it’s all been, it’s never been Jaebum’s fault. There was no one to point to in the first place.

“Yeah.” He answers back.

“ _ Yeah _ _?_ You make me say all that and all I get is  _ yeah? _ ”

Jinyoung laughs, “Yeah. Pretty much, hyung.” 

Jaebum’s teeth are straight and white and he bares them in a goofy grin, sighing in resignation, “Brat,” he murmurs under his breath and Jinyoung shuffles himself closer to sit by his side. He tucks his knees to his chest and loops his arms beneath his legs, grasping his hands tightly, curling into a ball.

Time stains brighter in that instance with Jaebum smiling himself silly right next to him. Golden like honeysuckle, tinted blue in the corners. Things are okay in that moment and the tightrope Jinyoung has become so tired of walking halts its swaying beneath his feet for a silent heartbeat. 

And then - the drop that slips way, way down - gives way beneath him. 

It’s quiet again between them, just the rise and fall of their chests. 

The sun rises, and something dawns on Jinyoung. Big and bright and burning, right in the centre of his heart as his eyes find Jaebum’s. 

He’s been too blind. Of course he likes Jaebum back. 

Jinyoung feels like all the words have been ripped from his mouth and all the worlds from beneath his feet. A buzz - embers or champagne or electricity, indistinguishable now - courses through Jinyoung into his every corner, his every joint, in his elbows and down to back of his knees until he feels its sparks fizzing at the very tips of his fingers. 

It’s no fireworks, it’s no explosion. It’s subtle. A heated bloom blushing out from his cheeks right to his ears. A coming conclusion that’s been hiding in sight that warms him all over. 

Just the two of them, they stay up on their high-topped perch until all the dawn-pinks and oranges have sunk away and Jinyoung can’t tear his gaze away.

If Jaebum’s noticed his sudden silence, he doesn’t mention it. Mistaken the suffocation in his chest as something companionable.

“You wanna head down? The ground’s so cold I can’t really feel my butt now.” Dregs of sleep mellow Jaebum’s eyes out, milky and droopy and it’s cute in a fuddled puppy kind of way.

“Yeah. Okay.” Jinyoung forces out, suddenly embarrassed.

Jaebum raises a discreet eyebrow at him, staying silent but the question formulating in his head plain to see. That curious twitch in his lips. The puff of perception that he breathes. Jinyoung guesses he did notice then. Of course. 

They make their way back down the hill and across the slope and through the woods, the trees no longer illuminated in gold but now damp with morning browns. Jinyoung lingers a few steps behind Jaebum, watching his back and keeping his broad form in sight. His hands twitch awkwardly at his side, unsure where to put them and unable to control the sudden burst of anxious energy. 

When they reach camp, he makes a swerving beeline away from Jaebum and pulls Mark aside immediately. 

“I need -” 

“To talk to me, I know.” Half of an eaten sausage is stabbed through his fork and he looks more concerned with his greasy breakfast than him, smearing the ketchup on his fingers off onto his jeans. 

“How’d you know?” He shoots a look to where everyone else is occupied around a sizzling portable stove. 

It looks a little ridiculous, three men crouched around and anticipating over partially burnt yet still partially undercooked sausages. Jaebum pokes at a meaty lump and topples onto his ass with a yelp when burning oil spits onto his face. The pan sizzles threateningly. 

Mark finishes chewing and Jinyoung moves his attention back to him, very aware of the glances Youngjae’s attempting to keep inconspicuous. 

“Well,” the older begins, “for starters, you came down from wherever the hell you were with Jaebum looking like you just witnessed someone’s brutal murder.” 

Jinyoung immediately schools his face, embarrassment fluttering in his belly. He didn’t think he was so obvious. “I, uh…”

“You didn’t, right?” Mark becomes coy with his twisted sense of humour, “Cause if you did, there’s a wrench in the car and Jaebum’s back is turned to us.”

“No, no, Mark, shut up. There’s no one around here to kill, okay.”

“Well, last week Jackson ate my leftovers and the month before you cracked my phone screen because you  _ weren’t  _ snooping around my room.”

“ _ Hyung.”  _

His friend chuckles, taking Jinyoung’s hands in his own and shaking them in apology. “Sorry, sorry. What is it?”

Jinyoung grumbles and puffs his cheeks out. He tries to shake Mark’s grip off his hands, “Well, now I can’t say it. You’ve ruined the mood. And let go!” Mark melts into giggles and his hold tightens the more Jinyoung tries to pull him off. 

“I’m serious. I’m serious.” The older schools his features into a solemn, grave expression. The stone cracks a second later, back into his schoolgirl giggling and Jinyoung resists the urge to roll his eyes. 

“ _ Hyung _ .”

The other nods, tucking his lips in and controlling himself, eyes expectant and humouring him with patience. Jinyoung’s both annoyed - what a mood breaker, honestly - but he’s also somewhat glad for his tension diffusing by a degree. 

Mark is expectant now, gazing at him. All the ropes seem to tangle then in their sudden silence, the words becoming too isolated to capture into what Jinyoung was so desperate to voice a moment before. A timid exhale escapes him and he drops their joined hands. 

“It’s about Jaebum hyung,” he starts cautiously, “and I think that, uh, something has...developed.” 

Mark cocks his head to the side, eyes squinting.

Jinyoung recoils away, averting from his stare. He’s sinking neck-deep into a growing swamp of thoughts and it’s strangely getting harder to breathe. “I don’t know? This is weird, let me just. Give me second.”

“Hey,” A hand comes to pat Jinyoung’s cheek and instinctively he turns back around, “Jinyoungie, hey, calm down. You look you’re going to throw up.” 

He blinks rapidly, the world warping into a swirl of discontent and he painfully aware of the strange, erratic fluttering beneath his sternum. A feverish heat in his belly, glowing towards his chest in a discomfort he can't dispel away. 

His eyes flutter shut and he fights the twitch to dig the heel of his palms into his eyes, and instead leans against Mark’s cold hands.

His friend opens his mouth, words soft with concern, “Hey, what's wrong?” 

Jinyoung finds himself shaking his head, “I think,” he gnaws his bottom lip, “I might like Jaebum back.” 

A memory of his conversation with Yugyeom flashes through his mind and he laughs hoarsely, “ _ Like _ like.” The words are hard and foolish against the back of his teeth. Metallic almost, biting into some metaphorical bullet.

Silence bloats around them as Mark's hand drops from his cheek down to his wrist, his fingers coming to rest loosely around his bone. “Why is that such a bad thing?”

“I didn't say that.” 

“But you're acting like it.” 

“Well I don’t exactly have the best timing in the world do I?” he snaps, “I feel so fucking stupid and  _ embarrassed _ . I don’t know what to do. What should I do?”

A pensive look casts over his friend’s face, apprehensively confused with a concealed twitch of a brow, and Jinyoung belatedly realises then that Mark doesn’t even have the full picture, that there’s no way he can comprehend the full, stupid gravity of this. He’s about to open his mouth to tell him to just forget about it when a voice interrupts.

“Why are you two just standing there?” 

Jaebum’s staring at them. His lips are tensed tight, each corner of his mouth curled into a knot and his eyebrows creased downwards, his stare intent. As soon as he notices Jinyoung’s reciprocating gaze, he drops it just as fast as it had appeared and his suspicion twists into an evident concern. Jinyoung forces his gaze to drop to the grass. 

He may have realised his feelings just then, but he already knows what to do. 

“They’re sharing secrets, hyung,” Jackson flips a sausage and braves against at the spitting oil, “Big, fat best friend secrets.” 

 

 

 

With Youngjae’s morning class and Mark’s responsibility to open up shop, Jackson loops an arm around Jinyoung’s shoulder and tugs him close, a proposal of  _ me and Jinyoungie will keep you company  _ lilting on the back of his tongue. 

“That is  _ extremely  _ unnecessary.” 

In shotgun, Jaebum’s slitted glare is wary through the rearview mirror. His earphones are resting around his neck, noiseless, and the crinkling of shirt and the purple press of his eyebags betray the cool authority of his voice. He’s doing some strange grown-man pout with his lip curled sneer-like and his arms crossed tight against his chest. It’s kind of cute, the dishevelment and petulance, and there’s an almost unnoticeable squeeze in Jinyoung’s chest.

He wonders how this can even be real. Jaebum. Jaebum being cute. 

Paying no heed, Jackson fiddles with the car radio. It’s an old-school knob contraption and it sets the whole interior abuzz with crackling spurts and salt-and-pepper static. 

Youngjae yawns, his heavy head lifting itself from Jinyoung’s sore shoulder. Jinyoung pats his feathery hair and watches the two of them quarrel while they’re all stuck in traffic with all but one window rolled up. Jackson’s hair ruffles violently in the wind. 

A strange presence collects all the way down to Jinyoung’s chest with a numbed, senseless feeling of spectatorship. There are no words that he can savour to define the odd sensation, where every passing second is muted and slow, each detail searing into his head. The simple shadows Jaebum’s body casted across the dashboard, the swoops of Youngjae’s hair blitzed golden by the sun and the thread of their shared horizon pressed against his eyes as thin as steam. Faded, but burning in colour. 

Just the displaced feeling that this was him now, in his place in the universe: held up on a highway, in a van, with his friends and with Jaebum. His voice, his laugh, the quick glances he steals at him, a physical sensation on his skin like paper, thin, smooth and cool. 

It almost hurts, all the way from his head to his heart.  

“It’s our last day together,” They’re at a red light and Jackson’s twiddling grows more fanatic with the stations, “we have to, hyung.”

“You’re not sending me off to war. It’s just a few days or so.” A glimpse of guilt passes across Jaebum’s face. 

The ugly feeling is reflected back in Jackson’s voice where it’s easily cushioned beneath the faint traffic and the careful snoring of Mark, “A week of our  _ precious  _ time together lost.” 

Jaebum sighs but it lacks bite. The gruff silence that follows speaks of affirmation. Jackson’s feet pitter happily on the van floor.

The vehicle suddenly explodes with a blast of music. Some sort of dance track booming with a heavy bass in a terrible, scratchy quality the best the ancient stereo could afford. Jackson relaxes in his seat, satisfied, and Jaebum does another one of his sweet, breathy laughs at him as a green light blinks and the van hitches softly, rolling again. 

They drop Mark off first at his apartment, who waves sleepily at them in farewell with both shoulders occupied by his and Jinyoung’s bags. 

It’s Youngjae next, yawning loudly at them in goodbye with a beanie pulled over his ears and his duffel limp on the sidewalk. 

And lastly, with the van’s tapering roll coming to a halt, Jinyoung gazes up from where he’s alone at the back to the now familiar reach of Jaebum’s apartment complex, pointing skyway. 

Two minutes later, he and Jackson find themselves waiting outside the parked van together. Jinyoung’s holding in his amused laugh and Jackson not at all, as Jaebum is busy upturning the entire vehicle for his mysteriously vanishing earphones. 

Jackson glances at his face and plucks his fingers from where they bracket around his sleeve and holds his palm instead, calmer. The skin is rough and calloused, grooves and bumps carved from the steady grip of his sabre, but soft in warmth. 

“You’ll be okay?” It’s hopeful kind of question with a hopeful kind of answer, “You’ve been quiet the whole morning.”

Jinyoung’s lips part slightly in a noiseless breath. He didn’t think he would’ve noticed. He quickly shakes his head, brushing it off with a smile. 

“I’ll be fine, Jackson. It’s nothing. And, like Jaebum hyung said, he’ll be back soon.”

“Yeah, but-” the other man purses his lips so that his cupid’s bow divots downwards, his cheeks rounding into pockets with concern, “It’s not that simple, Jinyoung. You know that. There’s nothing simple about feelings and shit.”

_ Of course _ , Jinyoung thinks bitterly. Yugyeom and young naivety flashes through his head again and there’s a moment of envy for that simple world that he let pass through his head so quickly, so slyly, like some cheeky silver fox darting away into the bush. How nice it would be to have his thoughts revolve solely around a part-time job and his grade point averages once more. 

Then again, he corrects, watching Jaebum hit his head against the van ceiling with a muffled  _ thump _ as he tried to get out, maybe not. A little sadness hugs his chest as he and Jackson laugh. Jaebum scowls at them, flushing. 

“It’s a little late to change anything now, though.” He continues, looking back at his friend. 

“What does that even mean?” 

Jinyoung reaches hand around to friend’s back pocket and tugs up a stolen bundle of earphones, “It means I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Jackson’s smile is guilty, but impish. 

The lobby of the complex is quiet and reflective, very grey and very silver with a wall of alabaster to one side and mirror panel to the other, adjacent to wide revolving glass doors that gilded the entrance way. There’s a doorman outside, eyeing Jackson’s rented baby-blue nightmare with something akin to scraping a bit of dried gum off the sidewalk. 

Jaebum’s still a little miffed about the earphones thing - those were a  _ gift _ , Jackson - and the entire elevator trip, all fourteen seconds of it, is Jinyoung refining his iron will to not constantly glance at Jaebum, not to concentrate on how warm, how solid and pleasant it was to feel his arm pressed against his.

The worst thing is. Just yesterday, he  _ wouldn’t  _ have fought these compulsions. He wouldn’t have read into this little ticks, these small urges to just, hey, take a glance, take a peek. Notice his touch, notice his presence. It’s just Jaebum.

It’s just Jaebum. 

“Jinyoung?” 

Jinyoung squeaks, startled, “Yes?”

Both Jaebum and Jackson are staring at him, identical expressions of raised brows and parted lips parted in puzzlement.

“Are you okay, Jinyoung ah?” Oh, why did he call him that. Jinyoung would seethe if he could, “You’ve been out of it this whole morning.” 

“Oh, what? Yeah? Psh, I’m fine.” 

Shit.

Clearly, Jaebum doesn’t buy it for a second and his face ticks into a frown. “Are you sick? Did you catch a cold?” 

He shakes his head weakly, eyes dropping to the floor and thankful for the cover his fringe supplies so he no longer has to dissect that stupid concern so tender in Jaebum’s expression. 

“Maybe, I think so,” he half shrugs and laughs pitifully. The strained warble and bounces around their small space before falling flat at his feet. “Just feeling a little tired.”

“I have spare rooms, you can rest in them. And there are those tablets you bought for me when I was, y’know. Sick, too.” 

He feels the tips of his ears beginning to warm. A rapid surge breaks through the banks of his memories of that incident, all those waves of confusion and anxiety and wordless shock colliding and collapsing over another. Him pulling up Jaebum’s frail form from his bathroom floor, his dead weight against his chest and his hand brushing away the fringe matted against his forehead, only to see his eyes clenched tight and holding in the threat of tears watered along his eyelashes. The cold-sweated tremble of his hands too, feverish to touch.

It had opened his eyes to see Jaebum so vulnerable. It took him all that, right up to after he’d run off like the coward he was, breathless and heavy-footed, meandering around the city with his shoulders colliding against strangers, against corners, to realise - not remember - how much Jaebum was made of the same material as he was. Just as human as he was. 

He wonders if that was the catalyst. 

“Thanks, hyung.” He smiles shyly, remembers to be sincere. 

Jackson coughs into his fist. 

A loud ringtone abruptly cuts through the air and Jackson shrieks, hands fumbling to grab his phone from his pocket. A quick glance at the caller ID has him whipping from shock to deflation like a winded airbag as he swipes to accept the call. 

“Ahaha, coach! How’s my main...man…” A visible drop of sweat forms atop his forehead.

“Training? Why, I’m on my way right now of course! I didn’t forget, no, I have a mind like a steel _trap_ -” He’s madly pushing the ground floor button now as if hoping the elevator would snap and plummet as fast possible. 

Jinyoung shares a concerned look with Jaebum, “Jackson, what’s…?” 

“That was just the traffic, coach! Ha ha!” 

The doors finally slide open with a  _ ping  _ and Jackson all but shoves the two of the out, their belongings following in a collateral heap on the floor. Their friend smashes a button and waves at them, a wild sheen of panic in his eyes, as the panels slide shut once more. Ominous. 

What initial panic and awkwardness Jinyoung feels creeping into their now Jackson-less space, Jaebum dissipates with a roll of his eyes.  

“That’s the third time in the last two months he’s done that.”

And they laugh quietly together.  

In the end, it’s the just the two of them in Jaebum’s moderately-high-lux apartment. With Jinyoung at the kitchen island, naengmyeong noodles still softening in a bubbling pot and its ice melting atop the counter, and Jaebum cross legged in his suitcase induced zen. Rays of folded clothing and twisted paperbacks radiate out from him and he sits impassively, eyes intent on rolling up his socks, earphones dangling around his neck. 

Jinyoung lets himself get lost in the faint hum. He lifts the pot lid with a teatowel and balmy clouds bloom upwards as he jabs the limp noodles with his chopsticks, trying to distract himself from the Jaebum-sized elephant in the room only he can see.

“Don’t think I’m being deep or anything,” Jinyoung turns to see the other man done with his socks and tossing them one after another into his suitcase, “and I know I’ve said this before and whatever, but you really are... _ something _ .”

“Uh, thanks,” It’s really not his own volition to feel flustered over something so stupid-sounding. But here he is, feeling his neck grow warm. “Back, uh, right back at you?” 

Jaebum has a hand to face, pinching the bridge between his eyes and his own ears pinking, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. Exactly.” He inhales through his teeth and then breaks into a soft laugh at himself, “I’m trying to say. You know, thanks. I know how awkward this is for you. And, yeah.”

“It has been a strange few months,” he sets his chopsticks down onto the counter. They’re quite beautiful, the chopsticks, with engravings and gold paint and heavy, solid wood. “But if you keep wasting your energy worrying about me, I’ll get pissed.”

“Good for you that that won’t be a problem, then since I will be an amnesiac and all.” It’s a little morbid and uncalled for, and the flinching of Jaebum’s eyebrows show his immediate regret. 

There’s no response Jinyoung can think of and the room dampens tenfold. A familiar suffocation embraces the space between the two of them, like a muggy breath breathing into his ear and snaking into his chest. To grip, once again, at his new heart. 

“Shit, Jinyoung, I didn’t mean to say that.”

“No,” he turns away and takes the lid off the pot again with his bare hands, hisses at the burning sting and he drops it on the counter. It clangs loudly, “You didn’t. But you still did.” 

It takes a lot off effort for Jinyoung to steady himself still. It’s all the steam he reasons, that’s what’s making him so lightheaded. Not Jaebum, not Jaebum leaving, not his stupid feelings and not his stupid words.

“Sorry,” he says again after a beat, “for snapping. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Jaebum had told him he’d changed, but Jinyoung feels like he’s back at square one all over again. Right at the bottom, confused and angry and always about Im Jaebum. 

He finds it funny then, furiously stirring and ignoring the burn of boiling water, coming to the conclusion that he and Jaebum would always be this big, fat mess. They could never be on the same wavelength, always missing another by a misstep, a misunderstanding and whatever encompasses after is just the stickiest kind of guilt. The faultless kind, with nothing to adhere to but whomever was just standing too close. 

“Jinyoung ah, I don’t want us to fight.” 

His voice is so brittle that Jinyoung can’t help but glance from his shoulder back at him. There’s a bundle of socks in Jaebum’s fingers that he’s spinning it nervously. 

Pity then, he can pretend that that’s the ache that pangs so fiercely, “If you’re trying to tell me something hyung, please just say it.”

“Jinyoung. You’re, different. From before.” 

Now perplexed, Jinyoung turns around to face him. 

“I think I’m just reading into it too much but, I’ve been thinking about you for the past few days and how you’re acting...differently. I was so sure I was just being hopeless, just being myself, but this morning when we were in the woods and on that hill, when you said those things - and even yesterday. I can’t help it.” 

The thing about Jaebum is, Jinyoung always forgets to realise, he’s always thinking as much as he is. About every damn little thing. The insinuation is about to choke Jinyoung and he stabs it quickly in the chest. 

“Whatever you’re going to say. Don’t.” his voice is icy but it only eggs Jaebum further. The suspicion he’s wearing solidifies into a frown.

“So you know?” 

“Drop it, please.”

Jaebum moves to stand and Jinyoung’s already stepping backwards, the small of his back colliding with the counter as his friend is now upright, unsteady in his spot. 

“Jinyoung, when?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Just this morning. A few hours ago, on the hill.” The confession is too heavy to bear now that Jaebum’s already torn its skin open, “But before you think anything of it, I won’t do anything about it.”

“What?” It comes out like a punch and a wide-eyed Jaebum is suddenly standing before him, jaw set to a rigid angle, misleadingly angry, until Jinyoung finds his gaze only to see his eyes swimming in a confusion of a choice he can’t comprehend. 

“Hyung, I don’t have what you’re asking for.”

A pair of hands grab his elbows, “Bullshit, you’re the only thing I’ve wanted.”

“Jaebum, listen to me. You’re blinding yourself, think about it actually. You’ve been,” he pulls his hands away, “in love with me since _ last year _ .  _ In  _ love. I just figured out some stupid infatuation  _ this morning _ .”

“It’s not stupid to me. It would never be, don’t you know that?”

“It’s because you’re forgetting the whole thing about you being dangerously sick, you dumbass. You look like you’re going to die, you can barely eat, barely sleep and I feel like you’ll collapse every time I see you awake. I’m not  _ in love  _ with you Jaebum. There’s a difference.”

“But you feel something. That’s all I need to know.” It’s the infuriating stubborn hope in Jaebum’s voice that spikes Jinyoung’s temper up, makes him raise his voice. 

“Maybe I won’t next month, next week, maybe fucking tomorrow. Don’t blind yourself! It’s an infatuation, some stupid high school crush and I’ll get rid of it just  _ please _ , don’t be stupid enough to do this to yourself when you’re leaving tonight.”

Jaebum almost explodes in exasperation, “You’re not seeing it! I don’t want you to get rid of it.”

“But I  _ do _ . That’s what we decided, that’s what we both agreed to, we promised  _ together _ . You’re going to leave and get better and forget about me so we can both start again. I promised I’d stay by your side if you promised to get help.  _ Please  _ don’t drag this out any longer than it already has, hyung.”

Jinyoung didn’t think heartbreak had a sound, but Jaebum comes dangerously close when he sees his lips stutter and his eyes fall to the floor. A raw colour bleeding into his voice as he speaks, resigned and bitter. “You’re acting like I wanted to fall in love. You’re being selfish and a coward and I would’ve thought after all this time, you would actually come to  _ trust me _ .” 

The words hurt so much more than they should, unbuckling in his heart with a dull thud one by one. 

The door frame rattles when Jinyoung leaves, the echo of its slam replaying again and again in his head and he tries to drown out the memories of all the hurt he seems to create. 

 

 

 

There’s an unaccounted for thunderstorm blowing furiously outside. Within the drafty chill of the shop, Jinyoung would almost wonder if they’d been suddenly hit by a typhoon. He doesn’t though. 

Mark had looked at him when he’d arrived, flinging the door open before slamming it shut, the bell swinging violently. He’d opened his mouth to ask but closed it soon enough upon seeing the violent tick of his jaw. 

Whatever fury that had possessed him had steamed out into something flaccid and grossly stubborn by the time it was time to close shop. Jinyoung had been mulling at the counter, tapping at his phone with enough strength to dent the screen and Mark had left, bookbag for his night classes on his shoulder, but not without doing something so Mark-like it irritated Jinyoung to even think about it. 

“Don’t let this - ” he had leaned forward over the counter, face solemn, to tap his forehead with his finger twice, “get in the way of this.” He brought his finger down then, to press it to his chest. 

And like the stupidly vague, fairytale bullshit prince he could be, his handsome nose disappeared behind the rattle of their bell, signalling his magical leave. 

Jinyoung snips at an innocent flowerhead and watches it collapse to the floor. 

Stupid. 

He’s been stupid. 

They’re all idiots and he doesn’t know what to do. 

He glances at the clock frequently even though he berates himself each time to stop acting like a kicked puppy. It’s eight o’clock. He’d been hiding in his room, in his apartment, and now in his shop for hours on hours trying to kill time and all the thoughts that followed behind it. 

Their argument, he’s been reliving it in his head, thoughts of the way he made Jaebum’s lips tug further into a scowl, into such an ugly look on where there would usually be a smile or a laugh, where it’s usually eased in a state of contentedness. So easily Jinyoung had stabbed his own insecurities into his awaiting hands, dug fiercely down to the hilt and even now he’s still holding the knife desperately. It’s too late now anyway, to change his mind. 

He doesn’t know when the flight is. If Jaebum told him, he’s surely forgotten by now. The only thing he can attach to that name is his stupid voice, his stupid face and the even more stupid hurt cold on his face when he just couldn’t understand what Jinyoung was saying.

Jinyoung folds his arms on the workbench and rests his head atop the sleeves of his sweater. The flower stalk droops sadly at him, not even sorry to be headless and instead sympathetic as if Jinyoung was the one with an empty neck. The tempest outside rolls with hungry thunder. 

It’s too late now, Jinyoung assures himself. He blinks slowly at the window. He can’t fight inevitability, he can’t question the optionless. No second doubting will pull Jaebum back.

But when he opens his eyes and the bright ceiling light continues to flicker uncertainly down at him, brightness cold against his cheek, he can’t seem to hide away the cruel pull tugging at his throat. If he just stayed, if they just talked, they wouldn’t be parting like this. He’s so sure Jaebum hates him right now, resentful, and the idea cloys with like black oil whenever he tries to swallow a calm breath. 

The sky outside swells again, a hairline away from cracking down. 

At least when Jaebum comes back, he won’t remember the fight. The thought eases him a little. 

His phone’s suddenly vibrating in his pocket. The bile of hope drops back into his stomach when he sees the ID. 

“Youngjae?” 

“What did you do?” 

No formalities. “What makes you think it’s my fault?” he fights back.

“Jaebum hyung never looks this sad, and he  _ never  _ forgets to eat dinner.” 

Jinyoung rubs his temple, “Youngjae, just stay out of this. This doesn’t concern you - “

“No!” Jinyoung has to blink, the force so sudden he’s left wordless.

“ _ Hyung _ .” Youngjae quickly adds, more desperate, “Hyung, I know it seems like I’m butting in but watching you both do nothing, I can’t do that. Please, talk to Jaebum hyung you have to. He left an hour ago but you can still catch him. He’s hurting a lot, you know, and he wouldn’t tell me about it and I didn’t know until Mark - “

“Mark??” Jinyoung cuts in.

“Yeah, I met him on the street a while after Jaebum hyung left. Anyway, he told me - “

“That.” Jinyoung cuts in, softer and dry-lipped, “That I like like him.” 

“ _ Hyung _ .” It’s so close to a plea that Jinyoung feels every chord in his heart strung to its limit. He thinks to this giant tangle he’s gotten caught in, how much of a mess he’s trapped himself in. 

“Hyung, I don’t see  _ why _ . Why did you say no? You two, please, what are you two doing?” 

He curls his hands into fists, trembling, “It can’t be that easy, Youngjae. I can’t ask him to give up more for me, if I risk his health for this - “

“It being not easy doesn’t mean it can’t be simple, Jinyoung,” All his formalities have dropped and Jinyoung’s amazed at how stern he sounds and he finds his tongue tangled, “Jaebum has only gone through all of this because he’s wanted to be with  _ you _ . The only thing that matters is do you want to be with him?” 

The answer, it comes so much easier than Jinyoung would have ever thought. It’s so clear to him now. “Yes,” he breathes, “Yes I do.”

“Then just  _ go _ .”

“Youngjae,” he pries his voice open to keep it steady but all he hears is a pained warble, “It’s too late. Jaebum’s already left and there’s way I can catch him now. You know that.”

The voice that responds is small, “You can’t say that.” 

A loud knock startles Jinyoung from his seat and he swivels around to the front door, heart in his throat. 

“Hyung? What was that?” Youngjae’s voice grows fainter. Jinyoung mumbles a  _ sorry  _ into the microphone and hangs up.

He scrabbles from his seat and he feels the whole room thrum with a pulsing energy, electrified in white as the lights overhead flicker. He pulls open the door. The whole sky howls right past his ear and he comes face to face with Jackson. 

“Jinyoung what did you do!?” Jackson hollers over the wind, water flying from his form as he brushes past his shoulder and into the shop. A puddle follows as he immediately begins pacing furiously across the floor, sending water everywhere and spraying the plants. 

Jinyoung’s heavy disappointment is swallowed by confusion, “Jackson, what the fu-” 

“Jaebum didn’t eat dinner!” Jackson explodes, “He’s never skipped a meal in his entire fucking life, what did you do to him!?” 

“Jackson - ” 

“You two fought didn’t you!? What did you two dumbasses do-”

“Jackson!”

The other man stops, still short of breath and so sad-looking from where he’s dripping in the middle of bushels of irises and cacti. He raises an eyebrow, prompting Jinyoung on with an unimpressed look. 

Jinyoung finds his hands shivering. He grips his palms together, and takes a deep breath in, “Can you get me a cab to the airport?” 

Jackson whips his phone out with a devious grin.

 

 

 

There are a number of ways Jinyoung could die that night. Embarrassment might make him succumb to throwing himself out of a window soon enough, he could possibly finally meet the final boss of Jaebum’s impressive temper the moment their eyes meet again, and he’d like to think that dying from a heart attack in a taxi with Jackson isn’t  _ that  _ bad, or, at least not as bad as it sounds. 

The most likely however, seems to be death from a freak car accident as their overpaid driver skidded across the flooded, extremely slip-prone highway like a video game being manned by an eight-year old. 

“Why did you give him all that money?” Jinyoung hisses, feeling every goosebump on his skin jump heaven-wards as they escape a narrow slide into an adjacent lane between a freight truck and a minivan. His fingers claw into Jackson’s thigh as he wills down the urge to throw up. 

Jackson seems more pained by his nails stabbing into his skin than the sixteen road laws they're breaking as he tries to pry them off, “It’s peak hour and it’s storming like god decided to piss his whole bladder out, I think they deserve the tip,” he squeaks, prying finger by finger.

As much as he wants to laugh at that, Jinyoung thinks he’ll accidentally puke his heart out so he swallows and braces against his seat, the speed catching up to him as he squeezes his eyes tight and tries to breathe. 

He doesn’t want to panic, doesn’t want to freak. If he could just block out everything, all the noise and colours and motions, if he could just push all thoughts about how he’s too close to having ruined everything, he’ll -

“Jinyoung.” A hand finds his own and uncurls it from where it’s pressed painfully to his chest, forcing his fingers open to allow another pair to intertwine with. He peeks one eye open to see Jackson, his whole body solid with absolute confidence. 

“Jinyoung, don’t worry. Don’t think. It’s going to work out.”

“How can you be so sure?” 

Jackson’s chest puffs a little, it’s a little ridiculous and it squeezes a tiny laugh out of Jinyoung. He wishes he could be so strong, just like this, and he squeezes Jackson’s hand tighter. “I’m sure, because I’m always right.”

Jinyoung laughs again, feeling the breaking tempo of his heartbeat soothe a little and he sighs tightly. There’s small relief as he feels one of the notches against his throat loosen. 

The car eventually reaches the airport and swerves to a breathtakingly, rather amazing halt. 

The departure terminal is shrouded by the thick coat of rain and it’s blindingly hard to read any of the signs, the lights inside all dimmed down to faint blocks of yellow in the distance. Jinyoung can only hope they’re at the right gate as he swings the door open and lurches out into the downpour.

Jackson, for whatever reason, throws another wad of money at the driver, screaming “Thanks for not killing us please drive safely!” as he shoots out after him. 

The storm hits like blocks of cement, collapsing atop of Jinyoung as he pulls himself to the shelter of light and warmth. He has Jackson’s hand securely in his own as he pulls them both along, bore down by the whole weight of the sky and it feels like weights have been tied down to their legs as they ran.

Thunder, at least he thinks so, rings through his ears. 

The moment the door of the building slides open, he and Jackson stumble inside, panting. 

“Jesus  _ fuck _ .” Jackson curses and shakes his head violently like a dog.

“Well,” he recomposes himself and slicks his hair back and away from his face, “I’m glad I didn’t wear anything white today.”

He’s about to laugh at his own comment before Jinyoung latches onto his elbow and pulls him along.

Jinyoung’s eyes are searching frantically. People are glancing at them, they probably look wild, but they all blur away as his vision jumps from person to person, glimpse to glimpse for anything familiar - his hair, his smile, his eyes, his stupid overpriced clothes -  _ anything _ . The airport, his surroundings, fade out into a spectrum of shapeless colours and moving figures as he grows more and more panicked the longer he can’t seem to recognise anything at all.

He turns around, voice unusually pitched, “Jackson, where could he -” he stops short. 

Jackson’s eyes have caught onto something, but his brow is uncharacteristically heavy as he draws his mouth into a tensed, thin line.

“Jinyoung ah,” he nods at a massive clock hanging from the ceiling, it’s numbers an impatient orange showing twelve minutes to nine. Foreboding doesn’t even begin to describe it and Jinyoung already knows what’s about to come out his mouth. “Jaebum hyung’s flight just left.”

He lets his arm drops to side, limp. 

The rain outside reaches a deafening level. A torrent of thunder cracks open, enveloping each echo after another in a furor of sound and light. Jinyoung wonders if he’s imagining the rattling around him, the air being split open like palms cleaving through invisible curtains. 

Of course. Who was he kidding, entertaining the idea of not being a fuck up. He senses a pair of arms turning him around and only then does it hit him how frigidly cold he is, how drained he feels with his clothes weighing him to the earth. He lets himself be pulled to Jackson’s chest and he doesn’t reciprocate, bone-tired, but he pulls his face closer to his neck, just to feel his breathing against his cheek. 

“It’s okay, Jinyoung. It’s okay.” The care in his voice is so rich it makes him shake like a leaf. 

The urge to cry is so overwhelming in that moment that Jinyoung feels his knuckles being pulled white as he grips the fabric of his shirt. It might be shock, he can’t tell, can’t think, but he feels like he could swallow the whole sky right now. 

Stupid. Stupid, he’s so stupid. 

He missed it. Of course he would, of course. Of course. 

Against his chest, Jackson tenses up, arms going rigid, and there’s a voice that Jinyoung hears that is so lucid, he almost thinks it’s real.

“Jackson? Jinyoung?” a beat, “What are you two doing here?”

Jinyoung pushes his head up so violently his vision swarms with light and he blinks, eyelids fluttering madly as he straightens himself, head swiveling to find  _ where. _

There’s a soft laugh, it hurts to hear, and Jinyoung turns his whole body around. 

Before him, a handful of steps away, stands Jaebum regarding him with an awfully bemused yet awfully concerned gaze. They’re so warm, his eyes on him.

“Jaebum,” it comes out like a breath. It must be a dream. 

Another laugh, this time nervous, “Hey?”

Jinyoung untangles himself out from Jackson’s embrace and crosses their distance in four, short strides, “Don’t  _ hey  _ me,” he seethes and tackles him into a furious embrace. Jaebum falls back with a squawk, catching the both of them with a step and a chuckle deep in his chest that Jinyoung feels against his own.

His heart stutters dangerously. He chokes back his shaky breathing into Jaebum’s neck as he presses him as close as his numbed arms will let him, fingers clutching his broad back and twisting into the fabric of his stupid, expensive coat, one that he was ruining with all his rainwater and all his sniffling. 

Jaebum couldn’t seem to care less though. His own hands come up to clutch around his backside and they’re so much infinitely warmer that it feels like he’s being burnt through the fabric. Maybe he’s just that cold, maybe Jaebum’s just that warm, but whatever heat he feels seeping from those fingertips right down to his very own, he can’t seem to think of as anything other than happiness. He’s so happy. 

The realisation alone makes him choke. Relief was like air, swallowed desperately.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Jaebum’s voice is low, murmured into his ear where he feels the brush of lips against its shell. Jinyoung hiccups. He nods against his collar. 

Slow circles are being rubbed into his shoulders. It’s soothing to feel the familiar pressure, pressed in rhythmic movements against his tensed muscles and Jinyoung finds himself melting forward, further into his touch. Small, helpless noises fall off his tongue and he’s briefly aware of what kind of scene he’s causing. The threat of tears is loud in open spaces and his ears are beginning to ignite as he’s suddenly aware of the volume of his breaths, all the curious looks by bystanders thrown at these two grown men gripped in an embrace. 

He sniffs deeply, self-conscious, and moves to shift away but Jaebum’s arms only tighten and crush him even closer to his chest. The hands on his back drop down to his waist where they grip him in place like a vice. Jaebum’s head falls to his shoulder where he shakes it stubbornly. 

“No, stay like this. Who cares. Just a little longer.” He mumbles, almost presses it into his skin, in such a meek whisper to keep it just between the two of them. 

Jinyoung’s too embarrassed to say no. So, he lets him stay, not a bridge of space between their chests. 

It’s his need to breathe that makes Jaebum reluctantly unstick from him but he still keeps his arms loose around his figure, his fingers curled around the soppy fabric pooled around his waist, as if he would actually leave. 

Jinyoung has to bite the inside of his cheek when he sees the massive damp stain all across Jaebum’s front and his cheeks flare horribly when all Jaebum does is give him is a light pinch on the chin for it. 

Jinyoung’s voice finally crawls from the pit of his stomach and back to his throat, “You’re here.” he croaks.

“I could say the same for you.” 

“I don’t...I thought you had...What about your flight?”

The grin on Jaebum’s face is faultless, stretching wider with a chuckle. His fingers come to tweak his right ear. He can’t seem to stop touching him, as if grounding himself in reassurance. “Look around, dummy. No plane is gonna take off in a storm like this.” 

Patches of heat mottle all the way down Jinyoung’s body. Thinking back to the frantic rush, the sheer intensity of the race to get here, now all unnecessary, makes his ears mortifyingly red. He shields his face with his hands and visibly shrinks away, unable to look into Jaebum’s dazzled eyes.

“I see.” he murmurs. 

He feels Jaebum’s laugh more than he hears it and he has to swallow away the pleased noise in his chest before he humiliates himself further. 

“You’re really here,” a tiny, wavering sigh leaves Jaebum’s lips and he pries away his hands so he can look at him, “Why, Jinyoung?”

Jinyoung whines, but he doesn’t bother tugging his wrists out of his hold. He wonders if his face could feel any redder, “You know why. Don’t make me say it.”

“I do. But, I want to hear it anyways.”

“I didn’t just go through the past 24 hours like some B-rated melodrama to embarrass myself further in front of you.”

“ _ Jinyoung _ .” 

He gnaws his lip and pointedly shifts his gaze to the side, drilling a hole into the linoleum. He’s already past the point of irreversibility, Jaebum’s probably seen everything at this point and god knows what more he could do to ruin his image.

“You…” he starts off eloquently, “You suck at pruning flowers.”

Clearly, from the way Jaebum’s face changes, that was not what he was expecting. Jinyoung could honestly die at the moment but he forces himself to finish his point.

“You suck at gardening so much that there’s no way that I’d be bothered teaching you again, and...And unless I’m there to stop you, you won’t stop eating trash in the middle of the night, and you’re so unapproachable you really can’t afford to lose anyone in your friendship circle at all, you know.”

Jaebum’s eyes are rolling skywards but he keeps smiling, amused and fond, “Is there more?”

“You also can’t lose those stupid whimsical memories of youth Jackson was talking about?”

“I think you’re missing one more.”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I’m making you say it. For me.”

What kind of argument is that anyway? Whatever, it works. He feels as liquid as the puddle collecting around his feet. “And I want to give us both a chance,” Jinyoung sighs. He feels like a teenager, defeated and exposed by his cheeks blooming red, “And I like you.” 

The satisfaction on Jaebum’s face, it should piss Jinyoung off. “Can I kiss you?” His hands come up to cup his cheeks.

Kissing. The notion hasn’t made his stomach drop since he had his first wet, clumsy touch. The buzzing in his head is exploding in his stomach, his hands, his tongue in white noise. Just the concept of it being Jaebum, it’s fraying him and he doesn’t know how he’s going to live through any more of this. 

He turns his head to the side with a noncommittal grunt, his lips softly brushing against Jaebum’s palms and he fruitlessly wills his blush to go away. “If you want.”

It’s gentle. Just the press of lips atop his own. Jaebum’s feverish warmth melts against Jinyoung’s own blue lips and he feels himself shy at the softness of his skin and the wetness of his mouth nudging against his own. Jaebum’s chin bumps against his, their noses might’ve brushed at some point, and Jinyoung doesn’t come back to his senses until Jaebum pulls back slowly, just a few moments later, and they both blink at another. 

Jaebum’s eyes disappear into slits, crinkling at the sides with the force of a smile. Jinyoung feels his own face mirror his, a hand coming up to touch tentatively at his mouth. 

Now a little less awkward, Jackson makes his presence reknown as he giddily waddles up to the two of them. He’s fighting his own grin back so terribly it looks like he’s grimacing in pain. His fists are trembling with a repressed outburst. 

“Hi Jackson,” Jaebum has a milky look in his eyes, glazed over as if he was still trying to process everything. His voice is distant but unbelievably close at the same time, “Thanks. For bringing him here.” 

Jackson screeches. He’s leaping forward to embrace the both of them with his entire weight and Jinyoung squawks, skulls too close to colliding, and the whole room seems to glow in dazzling, air-light brilliance as they laugh. 

“You’re both idiots!  _ Fuck!”  _ If there were polite glances before, there’s outright staring at them now. 

“We know,” Jaebum’s still laughing and it looks like he could melt. 

His hand makes its way back to find Jinyoung’s and his grip is startingly strong with his fingers clutching his, entwined, and pressed deep into his skin. There’s an imperceptible tremor to it, and Jinyoung squeezes him back. He understands. He knows. 

It’s been so long, he’s beyond exhausted. 

“We both know,” if they can hear the breathless crack in his voice they’ll probably bring it up later, in a few days, a few weeks, months, years to tease about how he’s always been such a crybaby, always weak for sentimentality. But for now, in just this one moment, Jaebum pulls their joined hands up and presses it to his chest. Palm to palm, to his heart, and against his lungs. They both understand.

“Let’s go home.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter guys tf!!!! the epilogue is next!! it's much shorter and hopefully coming to an update near you...term break starts in 2weeks so i hope i shall be drowning less *_* thank you all once more who've stuck around and for all the hits, kudos and comments. im so sorry for not replying to comments these days ;;
> 
> thank u for reading!! find me on twit @thanksjjproject to chat or yknow, anything <3


	13. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbeta'd. we made it folks.

The heat, as Jaebum comes to remember, is unbearable. Jinyoung is very vocal about this as such, _the sun is a bitch_ , he complains from where he’s lounging on the porch in the cool of the shade. There’s an ice cold bottle in one hand pressed against his forehead and a glass of ice tea with cubes melting in the other. His phone rests beside his hip with a game flashing _game over_ on its screen. _One flaming, big bitch._

It’s a hard argument, Jaebum can’t deny. What light the sun beats down feels like thickened cream, oozing and heavy and seeping into the lungs. Any novel in Jinyoung’s hand is more fanned than read, and Jaebum’s hidden behind a tinted sunglasses for the better half of their days. They’re from the local mall, Jinyoung had picked them out with a thoughtful, mischievous look. He said he looked middle-class and classy. Like a real ninety-nine percenter.

Jaebum’s been wearing them for quite a while.

They’re in Jinhae-gu, not for the cherry blossoms unfortunately, they’d missed the bloom by almost two weeks, and even then, their supposed summer vacation is really just Jinyoung’s guise to make Jaebum meet his parents. The Park’s are surprisingly loud, mildly overbearing, and eager to shove as much home-cooked food into his mouth as is ethically possible. Jinyoung’s two older sisters are a close pair and they snicker to another every time the pair turn a corner, intentionally obvious with their side glances. The first night over had Jaebum’s neck prickling with a constant nervous energy, anticipating some ploy to make him reveal information deeply-personal and inappropriate at the dinner table.

“Now I see why you’re so quiet all the time.” Faded from age, Jinyoung’s boyhood bed is a rather tight fit for two grown men and nights so far have been pleasantly suffocating, with limbs over limbs and sheets sticking to the back of their knees, comfort only breached by a window thrown wide open.

One night, Jinyoung had kicked Jaebum to the hardwood floor and he slept through it all until morning arrived with a sore neck. They had laughed, and after Jinyoung’s failed stint to kiss it all better, they went to the pharmacy to buy a heat patch that Jaebum had then refused to wear because really, it was warm enough.

Now, Jaebum is perched on the edge of the mattress, once more roaming his eyes across a dusty bookcase and the ripped edges of posters stuck beneath squares of tape. Old academic awards are still perched atop a lone shelf.

“With my sisters, anything you say can and will be used against you,” Jinyoung’s pulling on a t-shirt and the morning light is soft on his bare torso. “Those two have a mind like a steel trap. I just wish they’d use them for the greater good or something, rather than attempting to snoop about our sex life or something.”

Only been a few months have passed since they’ve agreed to give _them_ a go. A whole adult relationship, with adult things and adult prospects like leaving an extra toothbrush on Jaebum’s bathroom counter, splitting the bill at an ice cream joint, and Jaebum forgetting to clear his search history of _gay men date ideas help me please_ and having Jinyoung bang his knee on the coffee table with laughter as his body try to curl into itself. A serious relationship. And though a few months are just a blip in their history, the amount Jaebum still doesn’t know about Jinyoung puts him on a slight edge.

“You’re thinking about something.” Jinyoung’s shirt is thin. It rests almost carefully atop his frame, unresistant to the air.

“I am.” Jaebum tilts his head up when the other man moves to stand in front him, closes his eyes when Jinyoung’s hands cup his jaw.

He likes feeling Jinyoung’s kisses. On his own lips, or on his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his twin moles and the dip of his collar. His lips are thick and pillowy, more than often velvety with a type of balm. Cherry flavoured or maybe strawberry, sometimes honey or peppermint. Always warm.  

Jinyoung presses one to his temple and the comfort it brings spreads faster than the Summer heat to the day, “Me too.”

 

 

 

Jaebum collects everything he learns about Jinyoung like a packet of cards. They’re stiff, glossy and they fit perfectly in his palm and even more perfectly in his pocket. Jinyoung’s passion for acting and poetic prose is printed red, his obscure taste for film shaped into a black diamond and his bad luck with any animal of any kind is curved into a strange-looking club. These facts shuffle throughout Jaebum’s head absently throughout the day, cards bent back by a thumb, tensed and released in a burst of sound. The riffling of shapes and colours blurring into another. The pleasant sound of the final card slapping to a stop. The tapping of the deck onto a solid tabletop as he collects himself and thinks about coming home to his apartment to a warm figure curled beneath a blanket. A cat curled atop his hip.

 _Love_ , he first thought of, keys clinking when they slotted cleanly into his door one afternoon, one month after their night at the airport. They clanged against an identical pair inside the doorside bowl.

It’s ridiculous being jealous of how Jinyoung is not in love with him. There are still so many moments  Jinyoung has to attach sentimentality to and Jaebum’s only been a cheater, an entire year ahead of him in the race to fall first. So far, it’s been nothing but endless plummeting. Like some deep sea dive, head-first, from the cliffs, and into waves so turbulent they’re white with froth. Jinyoung is still perched cliffside, feet dangling over the edge to test the height.

But that’s okay, Jaebum’s okay.

He was still in disbelief, that Jinyoung had said okay back then. He had wondered sometimes if he had actually gone on the knife, that this was an anaesthesia-induced little fever dream. That the only white he’d wake to one night would be a hospital cot instead of the pillow Jinyoung would lay atop his chest, not wanting to sleep on his side of the bed.

 

 

 

In Jinhae-gu, even when all the petals have been blown away, the scenery is still beautiful. Jinyoung still promises they’ll watch them blossom together next time. Jaebum agrees, taking his hand.

“If it’s windy enough, it looks like a snowstorm. It all rushes at you.”

Jinyoung would look pretty, Jaebum thinks absently. More than flowers, even, rushing at him.

 

 

 

They speak of Jaebum’s illness sometimes. They won’t hide it, they’re never going to try. To do so, well, Jaebum’s not really sure why, but he knows that ignoring it wouldn’t be right. Not for the both of them. They’re not at the stage where they giggle over how he’d wake up each morning nauseated, they can’t yet chuckle fondly when recalling how strained it pulled their friendship, and Jaebum doesn’t exactly feel humorous when he still wakes up from fever dreams trembling through his hands. Drenched in sweat and lightheaded, a trail of something sweet-smelling in a memory kept in the back corner of his head.

It took a month for Jaebum’s attacks to stop, two months for the small, flowery hiccups to end for good, and three months for Jinyoung to finally pinch his cheeks and comment how they’ve gotten rounder, pinker. _Squishier_.

“You look you again.” Jinyoung had crawled silently into his lap that night and reached with two hands to cup his cheeks, lightly squeezing them together. Two empty bowls were left on the coffee table, chopsticks askew on the rims and soup stains on the glass.

Jaebum had brought his own hands up to layer over Jinyoung’s, “I always look like me.”

Jinyoung shook his head, softly smiling, “You look more like the Jaebum I met. Big, fat mouth. Always eating,” Jinyoung’s mouth had twisted to the side as if wondering if to continue speaking, “Chipmunk.”

“Chipmunk!?”

“Ah, no. Beaver.”

“ _Beaver_ _??_ ” Jaebum had ripped Jinyoung’s hands from his face and squeezed them with his fingers. There was a daring wicked grin playing on his face and Jinyoung just looked smug, “Are you trying to tell me something about my mouth and _wood_?”

“Hyung, please. You’re so vulgar.”

“Wow, I can’t believe _vulgar_ is in your _vernacular_.”

Jinyoung pulled his hands away and crossed his arms to his chest, “I didn’t slave myself to learn how to cook you to better health to deserve this treatment.”  

“Jinyoung you moved in a week ago and in that time you’ve only made rice and noodles. I can’t eat only two dishes.”

Jinyoung snorted, “You forgot to put wood on the menu.”

“No,” There wasn’t not enough endearment in the world that could fit into Jaebum’s chest. So he looped his arms around his boyfriend’s waist and tugged him close, resting his head against the warm softness of his sweater, “We definitely haven’t been having enough wood.”

“If this is going to be our new norm for foreplay, we need to have a serious discussion.”

Jaebum cracked a smile and the tremors of Jinyoung’s own laughter he could feel travel against his body and down his spine in a pleasant, little earthquake. He exhaled a little and hugged the other man even closer. Jinyoung had noticed straight away, in that Jinyoung way of his, and Jaebum felt him still. A hand had come to rest atop his head

“Jaebum?”

He’d shaken his head. “Sorry,” he murmured, “I love you a lot. I’m glad you’re here.”

A tender, amused sound had left Jinyoung’s mouth then. His hand started stroking his hair, carding through in a soothing rhythm. Jinyoung was sort of like that, soothing and constant, back and forth and ever present, ever-learning. A wave almost.

“After going through all of that, as if I would ever leave.”

It wasn’t an _I love you back_ , but Jaebum’s not a greedy person anyway.

 

 

 

“So, Mr. Fancy Rich Man-Boy,” The daring glint in Sooyoung’s eyes aren’t as frightening as they should considering she’s busy burping a baby daughter on her shoulder. Nevertheless, the hint of a threat isn’t lost to Jaebum. His eye contact flickers between her gaze and the lukewarm tea in his hands, pretending it’s the heat that’s rendering his palms clammy.

“I find it...Peculiar, that you chose Jinyoung. I mean, for your university’s student size and, well, reputation. Not to mention _your_ reputation. I wouldn’t have thought you’d go for someone like my baby brother.”

Jaebum clasps and unclasps his hands, thinks of Jinyoung last year throwing him a nasty glare, and laughs bashfully. “I didn’t exactly _go_ for him in that sense.”

The raised brow he gets in return has him panicking, “No, wait, ah, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean it like that, not the way you think anyway - “

“And what am I thinking?”

“Uh…” Jaebum feels like a fish, mouth opening and closing, “Like, like I’m using him? Or something?”

“Are you?”

“No! No, of course not.”

Another eyebrow is raised. Lipstick red lips pursing in calculation. “So, you’re saying this is serious. Settling down, adult things, daresay...Marriage? A picket fence? _Pets_?”

Oh they’re definitely related. Jaebum begins to sweat. “We’ve only been together for a few months, I don’t think Jinyoung’s even brought up any of that. I mean, he accidentally moved in but. It’s so early. And we haven’t even graduated yet. Uhm. We already have a cat?”

“So you’re just waiting for Jinyoungie, I see.” Sooyoung’s baby starts to burp and her mother coos, patting her yellow cotton covered back and Jaebum isn’t exactly sure what’s going on at all anymore. “Oh, by the way, if you do plan on eloping, Jinyoung doesn’t like large receptions.”

“ _What?_ ”

 

 

 

Whatever strange conversation he had with Jinyoung’s sister, it seemed his stilted reply was enough to render her docile for now. As a side effect, it instead has now riled Jaebum up so much that his whole head has been restless with thought.

“What’s bothering _here_ now?” Jinyoung leans over until he’s trapped his body with his own, and taps his forehead with a knuckle. “You’ve been staring into space all day. If one of my sisters said something, she was just playing with you, I promise.”

It’s well past midnight and the weather is kinder enough to allow the wind to be cooling, the air almost close to pleasant, and Jaebum can see the glow of streetlamps fixed onto the thin curtains of their open window. Jinyoung is especially clingy when he’s sleepy, so Jaebum runs his fingers lightly over his neck when his boyfriend noses into his jawline with a small whine and settles them chest to chest.

Jinyoung is warm and heavy, his shirt is thin with small goosebumps raised on his arm, and Jaebum loves how lucky he is, how lucky he’s become.

“Just thinking about things. About us, mainly.”

It’s easier to be pensive at night and Jinyoung’s less likely to laugh at him and call him dramatic when he’s stealing his warmth.

“Is that so?” He makes a funny sighing hum, “Are you thinking about us before, us now, or us in the future?”

“A little bit of everything.”

There are crickets outside. They’re loud and musical and Jaebum briefly wonders how bright the stars are out tonight. There’s a puff of breath clammy on his chest and Jaebum takes that as a sign to elaborate. “It’s taken us a long time for us to get here. We could have done a lot better.”

“We were different back then.” A pregnant pause, loud with Jinyoung’s thoughts trying to find lucidity in his sleepiness, and then, “Do you miss your memories?”

Jaebum stops his stroking to think and Jinyoung wiggles his head in defiance. Jaebum laughs, god how he loves him, and restarts the action. “A little,” a smile plasters onto his face.

“Well, we’ll make new ones to make up for them, right? They weren’t that exciting, a lot of it was us acting like dicks.”

“I think you mean wood.”

“Im Jaebum!” Jinyoung hisses, bolting up with cheeks pink. "Don't bring that back!"

Weak, half-hearted fists begin punching Jaebum’s chest and he can’t help but laugh at Jinyoung’s scandalized glare as he’s trying to roll to his side, curling himself into a ball and batting away Jinyoung’s assault. They’re both trying to hide their laugh, breathy in the low light and stomach muscles hurting. His fingers catch onto a wrist and he grips it tight, pulling Jinyoung down to his chest again and the other man flops forward, grumbling into his belly.

He likes it like this. The both of them open, two books laid flat with their spines cracked in half, pages facing to be read. He’s still getting to Jinyoung being pouty, being whiney, unfairly using a coy smile to get his way. He’s learning Jinyoung at his loosest, at his lamest, at his most unbearable.

Jinyoung is passive aggressive, fox-tongued and frightening in his silence. Jinyoung is introspective, keen-eyed and he thinks too much over too little. Jinyoung has the humour of an old man, watches documentaries about fishes, and when he eats cheese, he likes to pour a bit of ketchup on it first because no Jaebum hyung, it’s not weird.

“I can’t believe I’m dating someone so _crude_.” And Jinyoung sometimes likes to act like a child, just to indulge. He did grow up with two older sisters, after all.

The flesh of Jaebum’s stomach is sensitive and he giggles at the vibrations and the strange, plush feeling of lips tickling his skin, “Stop, you sound like a nineteenth century old man.”

Jinyoung raises himself onto his elbows, one of them digging into the lumpy mattress of his childhood, the other into his ribs. Jaebum’s hand clasps the latter.

“You love me.” Jinyoung’s smile is creased by moonlight and the streetlamp glow, a blend of yellow and blue on his face smoothening him into a ghost-like blur. He’s almost too much to touch, too much to see. “I love you.”

Jaebum’s grin breaks his face, and his other hand comes to cup Jinyoung’s smiling cheek. “You sure do.”

The curtains of Jinyoung’s childhood room are petal-thin, and the covers of Jinyoung’s childhood bed are daisy-white, and the two of them may have missed the cherry blossoms that year, but the blooming of warmth that unfurls in Jaebum’s chest when Jinyoung leans down to kiss him, makes up for more than enough.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (adele voice) this is the end. 
> 
> it took about a year and half for me to finish this i cant believe but ITS DONE. Im so happy its done. I can't say i'm 100% satisfied with it, but i am very happy with my first chaptered fic. from beginning to end it shows how much my writing has changed (drastically...), and this whole challenge was an experience thats taught me so much about my own writing :'^) ive thought about one day going through and updating the first few chapters or so, i don't think its likely i ever will, at least certainly not this year, but if i do ill let u guys know. 
> 
> first of all i want to thank Every Single Person who has read, kudo'd, bookmarked, commented or tweeted/talked about pushing daisies. writing this and finishing this was really tough, way more than i initially thought, and i didn't think id get so many people to read this at all. i was terrified of posting my lame ass amateur stuff last year so im so glad that even like, 10 people read this hfjskd THANK YOU ALL. i'm terribly sorry how slow updates became, if you've stuck around since the beginning...ilysm...ur a real trooper...and to everyone who picked this up more recently, thank u for dealing with me...
> 
> one big shout out to prescil and zaf, my writing goddesses for proofreading my 60945 grammar mistakes!!
> 
> thank you all sm again and i hope to write more fics for you all in the future!!!!


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